Deve Gowda to launch stir against farm land acquisition in Karnataka

Former prime minister and JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda on Thursday announced a 75-day agitation in protest against the acquisition of agricultural lands for industrial purpose by the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB).Gowda said the protest will be launched in Belgaum on Friday after which he will embark on a two-and-half-months tour all over the state to collect information from farmers about the acquisition of agricultural lands. “Our party senior leaders will meet on July 22 to finalise the exact format of agitation. In the name of land acquisition, the BJP government is cheating farmers. So we have decided to fight against this government anti-farmer policies,” he said.Gowda said KIADB should have started acquiring the land after examining facts about the industrial companies. But the “corrupt” government flouted rules and regulations to identify 1.2 lakh acre for the acquisition. The preliminary notification mentioned 47,000 acre of fertile land and the final had 27,000 acre, he said.“In the Global Investors Meet, the state government had signed MoU with 389 companies for 913 projects, but till now only 18 projects has completed. For all these projects 50,000acres of land is enough, but the state government is acquiring 1.73 lakh acres of land,” he said.As the state issued preliminary notification for land acquisition, farmers were not getting loans and could not sell their lands, Gowda said.