The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), the farmers’ outfit of the CPI(M), has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to farmers has revealed his “callous attitude” towards the protests against the Land Acquisition Bill, 2015.

Modi, through his Mann Ki Baat radio address, had told farmers that his government is sympathetic to their concerns. Various ministers had also indicated that the Centre is reviewing the legislation in the wake of protests from various sides.

Distorted picture

The AIKS said the PM conveyed a distorted picture on the new amendments to the Act by twisting facts. “The Prime Minister in effect has misused official media to spread lies and mislead farmers,” the organisation alleged.

Its leaders Hannan Mollah and Amra Ram said in a statement that the Prime Minister is indulging in an exercise of lies, deceit and demagogy to ensure smooth takeover of productive land for corporate profiteering and real estate speculation.

“There will be no safeguards for food security as even fertile multi-cropped land as well as productive rain-fed land can be acquired without any restriction. The possibilities of some rehabilitation and resettlement benefits to dependants on land other than owners of the land have been totally discarded,” they said and added that there is no proposal for a land use policy at the national as well as state level.

The AIKS said the new amendments have made the law as draconian as the 1897 Land Acquisition Act. “The government claim of offering job to one person of a family is like uprooting a family from their main source of livelihood and giving a token job to one person. It also does not address the problems of a wide cross-section of dependants on land,” the statement said.

Farmers’ organisations had carried out a series of protests against the land law.

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