Govt in two minds over how to pass land bill

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Sources in the government said it is keen to push the bill in Lok Sabha on the last day of the budget session on May 8 after getting the key bills such as GST bill, black money bill passed. “Let’s see what the Opposition say in Rajya Sabha. If they want to keep it pending before Rajya Sabha without either rejecting or sending it to another Parliamentary panel like Select Committee, let their stand go on record,” said a Union minister.

A section of BJP MPs admitted that the Opposition’s campaign and the incident of farmer’s suicide at AAP’s rally in Delhi last week has made it difficult for the government to go ahead with bill.

Keen to fight the “anti-farmer perception” battle, the government, meanwhile, said there was no link between the land bill and the incident of farmer Gajendra Singh’s suicide at AAP’s rally. “Some people tried to politicise the issue.

It was an unfortunate incident. But there was no connection between this issue (Gajendra Singh’s suicide) and the land acquisition issue. Because it had nothing to do with land acquisition. Some parties are trying to club it with the land acquisition issue,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said on Monday.

The minister also took potshots at Congress leader Jairam Ramesh who had reportedly said that NDA’s bill would be a “sanjeevani” for Congress. “He is admitting that Congress is dead, but if the land bill and food security bill had not helped them in the 2014 elections, how is it going to help them now?”