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Sonia Gandhi sees revival of party fortunes through farmers

Demoralised after successive defeats over past nine months, Sonia Gandhi plans to energise the party, by going hyper-active on the farmers' front.

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At a time, when most of Congress workers are sulking at the untimely flight of their vice president Rahul Gandhi abroad, his mother and party president Sonia Gandhi foresees chances of party's revival through raising concerns of farmers on NDA government's land acquisition legislation and issues of procurement.

The party on Monday announced to hold a massive Kisan rally of 4-5 lakh people at Delhi's Ramlila Grounds on April 19, which party sources say, could also be the first public appearance of Rahul after his mysterious absence form public scene.

Demoralised after successive defeats over past nine months, Sonia Gandhi plans to energise the party, by going hyper-active on the farmers' front. She will address the planned rally just a day before resumption of the budget session of Parliament, to send out a clear message that the Congress is not ready for any dialogue that compromises the farmers' rights. All senior party leaders, state union chiefs and legislature party leaders will be attending the rally.

Sonia is also visiting Madhya Pradesh on Thursday as part of her visit to the farmers that she has already completed in Rajasthan and Haryana to sympathise with them for the crop damage from the unseasonal rains. She was to also go to Punjab, but the visit was dropped before of inclement weather.

Significantly, Jairam Ramesh, a Rahul Gandhi man who has been handling every such rally as the former rural development minister and an architect of 2013 land acquisition law, has been kept out. Instead Sonia Gandhi has given the responsibility of Delhi rally's coordination to party veteran A K Antony and general secretary Digvijaya Singh. The rally was originally planned for April 4 and then for April 12, but logistic reasons were cited by Digvijaya Singh for finally settling on April 19. But the party insiders say the date may have been shifted to ensure the public appearance of Rahul Gandhi.

Reacting sharply to Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday accusing Sonia Gandhi of running away from debate, Singh said: "No question of running away, but there is no scope for debate. First restore the land law we passed to protect the farmers." Singh, who held a meeting with the party general secretaries along with Antony, said the government wants debate because its 'mischievous bid to make the land law a dud 'has been exposed or else why did it not try for a political consensus before bringing the ordinance?

On the issue of bonus that the state governments give over and above the MSP to maximise procurement of food grains for public distribution, Singh said the Modi government had arm-twisted them not to declare any bonus. The paddy procurement was hit because of this diktat as the rice mills got only 3.5 million tonnes of rice as levy as against the usual stocking of 18 million tonnes.

Meanwhile, Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday hit back at the Congress, while reacting to Sonia Gandhi's letter accusing the government of bringing the anti-farmer law to benefit the big corporate houses. Gadkari asserted that the preveious Congress-led UPA government had enacted the law in such a way that it bogged down state governments with the complicated social impact process even for acquiring one hectare of land for school, hospital or rural road.

In contrast, the Centre and the private companies who were allotted the coal blocks by the UPA government were given free hand under the acquisition law to acre thousands of hectares without any social audit, Gadkari said in his seven-page letter to Sonia Gandhi.

Noting that not a single acre of land could be acquired in the past one year of the new land law for rural roads, irrigation projects, power, schools and hospitals, Gadkari said it has only brought all development schemes to a grinding halt because of which job prospects have gone down, farmers are committing suicides, banks' NPA (non performing assets) have increased and the country's economy has gone bad.

Gadkar's rebuttal

Previous UPA government had acquired huge tracts of land for private companies and then handed it over to them for pittance, some of the beneficiaries being the Congress members, inflicting a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer.

Neither social audit nor the landowners' consent was found necessary under the coal act.

Congress chief minister in Maharashtra had pressed then rural development minister in the UPA government to get the Bill vetted by a committee of CMs, but the Congress-led UPA did not bother to secure consent of even own chief ministers.

UPA government had exempted major projects having the environment clearance from the social audit while small and medium irrigation projects have to go through the social audit, delaying their completion. Most of the farmers have irrigation from small projects.

Punjab having 98.1 per cent irrigated land was producing 4.2 tonnes per hectare while his Maharashtra state could barely produce 1 tonne per hectare since it had just 16.8 area under irrigation.

Government has not removed the social audit prior to acquisition but given that right to the state governments.

Parameter of one km on both sides of the industrial corridor for acquisition included to remove the mischief in the law having no limit to allow the corporates acquire any length of land.

Removing clause for return of land to the owners if not used within five years, done at the request of the Congress governments in Maharashtra, Haryana and Assam since they were worried that it would disrupt the projects for irrigation and houses to the poor as such projects may take more than five years.

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