The Union government is aggressively canvassing support for the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Bill, 2015, with four senior ministers having been assigned to reach out to all stakeholders and political parties to evolve a consensus.
Four senior Cabinet ministers — Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari and M Venkaiah Naidu — are talking to various stakeholders across the country to whip up support for the contentious Bill.
Finance Minister Jaitley was in Rajasthan over the weekend to talk to farmers’ organisations while Transport Minister Gadkari has been in dialogue with Congress president Sonia Gandhi as well as other political parties.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu too has been busy travelling in order to reach out to as many stakeholders as possible.
“I have talked to a number of organisations and interest groups in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Bihar. Actually, I have travelled across five States in four days.
“The idea is to diffuse the false propaganda that the Bill is anti-farmer. It is for the betterment of our farmers and all other stakeholders,” Venkaiah told BusinessLine .
In addition to the four top ministers, all members of the Union Cabinet have been asked to travel extensively in their respective States to address various concerns around land acquisition.
The BJP plans to make land acquisition a centrepiece of its political resolution in the party’s upcoming national executive meeting in Bangaluru on April 3 and 4. A presentation will be made to the members of the national executive.
The idea is to make a collective effort to counter the Opposition’s charge that the Bill is “anti-farmer”.
When asked about the conspicuous absence of Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh and Rural Development Minister Birender Singh from the government’s outreach programme on the Bill, Venkaiah said: “This is not true. Both these ministers have be en involved in addressing concerns over the Bill. Birender Singh’s statement on the Land Bill has been reported widely in the media.”
Pro-people schemesBesides the Land Acquisition Bill, the BJP is also planning to assign to the ministers and MPs the task of spreading word about the government’s initiatives in the last one year.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is completing one year in office in May and the BJP will unleash a blitzkrieg of pro-people schemes initiated in the last 12 months.