Feedback from restive AAP leaders, HC stay: What led to policy withdrawal

Prior to that, AAP MP from Anandpur Sahib Malvinder Singh Kang had already posted on his social media that the government should reconsider the policy as the farmers were opposed to it.

Sources told The Indian Express that Kejriwal was told that the policy was announced in a hurried manner. “In the meetings, it came up that the policy was announced in haste. It should have been done in a phased manner. We should have announced the land pooling scheme only for Mohali, where farmers were not opposed to it. It was only later that a narrative gained ground that the farmers would be getting plots and commercial spaces after many years. This defeated the purpose,” said a source privy to the discussions.

As the policy was formally announced on May 14, it took three months for the officers of the department of housing and urban development to formulate it after bypassing long procedures such as inviting objections.

After having lost election in Delhi in February, Punjab saw former Deputy CM of Delhi Manish Sisodia and former Cabinet minister Satyendar Jain getting active in Punjab. Jain was handed over the important department of hiousing and urban development. On March 4, the government effected transfers of IAS officers and handed Principal Secretary Vikas Garg the charge of the housing department by removing Rahul Tewari.

Sources said the work on the policy picked up speed soon after. The first file related to land pooling for expansion of Aerotropolis Residential Project in Mohali landed up with CM Bhagwant Mann in mid-March. In the first meeting in mid-April, he refused to sign the file. Later in the day, he called a second meeting and signed the file, sources said.

After that on May 14, the policy was finally formulated. The protests started erupting. It was amended on June 4 and July 25, making it more lucrative for the landowners.

The AAP tried its best to make the policy work. On July 20, Jain huddled up with MLAs from Assembly segments where land was identified for land pooling and subsequent development in Chandigarh.

AAP’s state president Aman Arora, housing minister Hardeep Singh Mundian and Rajya Sabha turned Cabinet minister Sanjeev Arora were also part of the meeting besides party’s spokespersons.

During that meeting, Jain asked everyone to get answers for their questions and doubts about the policy. He then directed these MLAs to go to the people and change the narrative. However, that too did not work. “Many MLAs tried but were faced with resistance. Then others did not try. The larger opinion within the party was also against the land pooling policy.”

Sources said that Jain has been overseeing the housing department of Punjab and has actively helped in formulating the land pooling policy. The government had identified over 40,000 acres of land in 27 towns and cities with 30,000 acres identified in Ludhiana, Mohali and Amritsar alone. These huge chunks of land were to be acquired after the land owners offer these voluntarily.

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