Karnataka’s Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa to withhold the ordinance that removes restrictions on purchasing agricultural land.
Removing restrictions on purchasing agricultural land is “in tune to the interests of Bengaluru land mafia which is waiting for more land to be made available to make enormous profits through real estate,” Siddaramaiah warned in his two-page letter to Modi.
The Yediyurappa-led BJP government has promulgated an ordinance that liberalises agricultural landholdings by allowing anyone, even non-agriculturists, to acquire them. There were restrictions on buying agricultural land as per the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, which has been amended.
“The decision of the Karnataka government led by B S Yediyurappa will have a multi-pronged effect on the farming community and the political economy of Karnataka,” Siddaramaiah stated, calling it unilateral decision “without taking the farming community into confidence.”
Siddaramaiah has been doggedly pursuing this issue by drumming up opposition to the ordinance, which the BJP government has termed as “landmark”.
“Historical efforts to make the tiller as the owner of the land will be undone and pave the era of the rich owning the land,” Siddaramaiah said. “The land reforms of 1961 and 1974 enabled marginalised sections, Dalits and other backward classes people to be the owner of the land. It broke the shackles of poverty and bonded labour, and liberated millions of peasants,” he said, adding that the ordinance would make farmers “vulnerable” again.
The state government has argued that people were buying agricultural land anyway because of corruption. The government has also said that removing restrictions on buying agricultural land will attract investments. “This exposes the incapability of government to contain corrupt practice and instead weaken the farming community,” Siddaramaiah said.
“The average landholding is about 3-4 acres per family and this attempt to double the land ceiling will further decrease the average land holding, which will have an adverse impact on the production capabilities of small and medium farmers,” he said, adding that 36,000 acres of undeveloped land identified by the KIADB can be utilised for industrial development instead.
“The farmers and their families will be adversely affected and many will be forced to be the labourers, due to economic or social vulnerabilities, in the lands of industrialists or big farmers. There is more possibility of manifestation of the Zamindari system which was the main reason for the backwardness in rural areas,” Siddaramaiah said.