Gearing up for the Assembly elections in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said it will launch a country-wide campaign against the land acquisition ordinance promulgated recently by the Narendra Modi government.
The drive will begin with the initiation of a ‘Village Dialogue’ in Delhi’s Chattarpur area by AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Yogendra Yadav on Sunday, which will be followed by protests by party’s state and district units across the country beginning Monday.
The ordinance will have an adverse impact on 35 lakh residents of rural Delhi”, the party said in a release, adding
that “Rural Delhi, like much of India's agricultural community, will bear the brunt of the government's rush to accommodate exclusive development for big business."
The AAP said details of the ordinance make it clear that the “Modi government’s dangerous move will throw farmers residing in the national capital, agricultural community and citizens of rural Delhi to the whims of big business.”
According to AAP, 20-25 lakh people in Delhi's rural areas are farmers or part of the farming community, whose “land rights have been taken away by some draconian sections of the Delhi Land Reform Act and now the amended Land Ordinance.”
The ordinance provides for compensation in only those few cases where the delay was not due to any judicial order or pending case, the AAP said while opposing this clause, amongst many other sections of this ordinance.