Govt will table land bill in Lok Sabha next week

NEW DELHI: More BJP allies joined the resistance against the land acquisition bill, raising the political cost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi should he still insist on pressing ahead with his government’s plan to introduce the legislation in Lok Sabha next week.
On a day when Congress took to the streets in protest, saying the bill was anti-farmer, BJP allies Shiv Sena, Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP and Raju Shetty’s Shetkari Sangathana spoke against the legislation which the Modi government has identified as crucial for its plan to accelerate growth. Another BJP ally, Shiromani Akali Dal, had opposed the bill on Tuesday.
Of the allies, Sena was particularly strident as it directed its cadre to campaign against what it called “anti-farmer” provisions of the bill.
While this threatens to put the government in a political pincer, it was not ready to blink yet. It made its intent plain by fielding transport minister Nitin Gadkari to counter the criticism that provisions of the legislation were loaded against farmers, while finance minister Arun Jaitley talked to the Akalis to get them to relent on their stand. Sources said the government did not wish to change its mind and that Jaitley will state so unambiguously during the course of his speech in Rajya Sabha on Thursday.
BJP sources expressed confidence that they would be able to get all the allies on board by the time the bill is put to vote. They claimed that Jaitley had successfully allayed concerns of the Akalis. However, they emphasized that the government would go ahead regardless of what comes of the persuasion exercise.
Securing passage of the bill was never going to be easy because of the government’s lack of majority in Rajya Sabha. However, the task has proven to be tougher, with BJP’s defeat in Delhi boosting opponents as well as restive allies like Sena which already had a few bones to pick with the saffron partner. Criticism from allies complicates the government’s efforts to muster enough numbers to get the legislation passed in a joint sitting of Parliament, while providing credence to allegations levelled by opponents.
Biju Janata Dal, which never shared Congress’s hostility towards the Modi government and had, along with NCP, supported the insurance bill, has moved into the ‘no’ camp, adding to the problem the government was anyway facing in shoring up the number of supporters.
However, as problems start accumulating, the government seems to be in no mood to relent. It is in talks with political parties like NCP which opposed the land bill framed under UPA and has plans to approach others like AIADMK and BSP. Apart from the political need to quicken the pace of growth, backtracking is not considered an option because it carries the risk of image loss for the PM who rode to power on the strength of his “strong leader” persona.
That it was ready was for a showdown was indicated by Gadkari’s forceful riposte to the bill’s opponents. Citing the minutes of the deliberations of an all-party meeting the Modi government had convened in June 2014 on the land acquisition bill, Gadkari emphasized that opposition to the legislation was driven by partisan considerations. He said Congress governments as well as the one belonging to CPM in Tripura had demanded changes in the land acquisition law passed under UPA.
Gadkari accused opposition parties of double-standards and said almost every state government run by them, including Congress, had written to the Centre against the previous land law brought by UPA. He also said the government was “open to accepting good suggestions” offered by other parties. “If people have some opinion on social impact assessment or consent clauses, we are willing to hear them,” he added.
Insisting that the new law was pro-farmer and pro-poor, Gadkari said two central ministries, highways and coal, had awarded compensation of Rs 2,000 crore to land owners at the higher rate after the ordinance was promulgated.
(With Active inputs from TOI)