PM Modi fails to break Land Bill stalemate

Nine chief ministers of Congress-ruled states besides those of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha kept away from the meeting of NITI Aayog’s Governing Council chaired by Modi expressing their opposition to proposed changes being brought by the government in the Land Acquisition Bill in the coming session of Parliament. Notable absentees from the meeting were West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Tamil Nadu’s J Jayalalithaa, Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik and Uttar Pradesh’s Akhilesh Yadav.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who cited prior commitments to skip Wednesday’s meet said, “We have framed an alternative land policy where direct purchase can be done through negotiations without any forcible acquisition.”

While red flagging changes in the controversial land Bill, J Jayalalithaa-led Tamil Nadu has asked the Centre not to go ahead with enacting the new Land Acquisition Bill saying some of the provisions like the one relating to social impact assessment were strongly opposed by the farmers in her state.

These chief ministers opposed “dilution” of the provisions of the original act of 2013 in regard to consent of farmers and exemption from social impact assessment.

Even BJP ally and Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal had a word of caution that no land should be acquired without the consent of farmers and land owners and that social impact assessment should apply to all acquisitions.

Among those who attended the meeting were Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Tripura’s Manik Sarkar and the Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states. And the two non-BJP Chief Ministers – Nitish Kumar of Bihar and Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, who attended the meeting, opposed changes Bill, which are currently being scrutinised by the Joint Parliamentary Committee.

Modi, on his part, said the deadlock over the land acquisition Bill was seriously impacting rural development and appealed to them not to come in the way of prosperity of farmers. Stressing that the Centre and States must move together to end poverty, the Prime Minister said, “the political deadlock over land acquisition (law) is seriously impacting rural development, including the creation of schools, hospitals, roads and irrigation projects.”

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the boycotting chief ministers to introspect whether not attending the meeting was in consonance with the spirit of cooperative federalism.

Jaitley said an “overwhelming” section of the states felt that they cannot indefinitely wait for a consensus on the amendments to the Land Bill. “They are keen to bring their own legislations,” he told a media briefing.