Politicians are not easily embarrassed, and the new general secretary of the CPI(M) is no exception. Sitaram Yechury has spoken out against the BJP’s attempts to dilute “farmer compensation and the rehabilitation clauses” in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (LARR). “Left wanted a stronger law last time, BJP never supported us,” he told a TV channel.

Does Yechury expect us to forget the Left Front government’s brutality in Singur and Nandigram in 2006-07? In trying to forcibly acquire 997 acres in Singur for a car factory and 10,000 acres for a chemical SEZ in Nandigram, where 14 people were killed in police firing, the Left Front government evoked shock and outrage. That sparked off similar protests all over the country — culminating in the LARR law that Yechury claims to support!

The Left Front was voted out of office in 2011. The government used the ‘eminent domain’ principle of the outmoded Land Acquisition Act, 1894, paying a tardy amount as compensation to Singur’s farmers. The State government had no credible rehabilitation policy in place. A government that won the goodwill of the peasantry for Operation Barga (distributing land to the tiller and banishing the zamindar) and stayed in power for over three decades, was voted out because of land acquisition.

Now, the question that arises is: Has the party changed its ‘line’ on land acquisition? Is it willing to admit the colossal ‘mistakes’ of 2006-07 and willing to apologise to the people of Bengal? Is it critical of Nandigram-style SEZs?

The fact is that the Marxists are as besotted by unqualified industrialisation as the UPA or the BJP because, unlike the Greens, they lack a critique of development. So, will Yechury consider an internal debate on land acquisition?

Deputy Editor

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