Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha
Rahul Gandhi today attacked the government in Parliament over its proposal to change the rules for buying farm land for projects. Mr Gandhi accused the government of trying to snatch land belonging to farmers to appease industrialists.
Here are the highlights of his speech:- It took us 2 years to enact the land bill and the NDA government has murdered it in a few months
- The first body blow to the land bill was the consent clause where this government says we will not ask for the consent of the farmers whose land is being taken away. The second was no social impact assessment.
- Government has snatched farmers' rights by diluting the clause for getting their consent to acquire land
- We had said if a piece of land hadn't been used for five years, then the land will be returned. This government did away with the clause.
- In SEZs, 40 per cent land lies unused, but NDA still wants farmers' land. Why?
- Government wants to give the land to crony capitalists
- We asked your Finance Ministry, how many projects are pending due to land. Ministry said that only eight out of 100 projects are pending due to land.
- This government is anti-poor, anti-farmer... it is a 'suit-boot ki sarkar'... If we can't stop you here, we'll take to the streets. Yeh suit-boot ka kaam nahi chalne dengey.