E-Paper
Giving land to homeless people, bid to increase particular vote share: Mehbooba Mufti
Mufti raised doubts on the scheme a day after lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha announced that the government has approved a proposal for allotment of five marlas of land each to landless and homeless families
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and People’s Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday slammed the new scheme to provide land to the homeless saying the government was treating Union territory as ‘war booty’ and distributing land to 10 lakh outsiders. This, she alleged, was aimed to increase a particular vote share.
Mufti raised doubts on the scheme a day after lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha announced that the government has approved a proposal for allotment of five marlas of land each to landless and homeless families.
“Who are these landless or houseless people as J&K doesn’t have any such homeless people? According to the ministry of housing and urban affairs, census of 2011 and their report in 2021, J&K has just 19,047 homeless people of which 10,848 are in urban and 8,199 in rural areas. These figures have been provided by the government of India in Parliament in 2021,” she said.
She questioned the government as to why migrant Kashmiri Pandits were not provided land. “There are thousands of Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu, did you provide land to them too? First, they should have been allowed to construct houses. They are spending their lives in one room flats. If you want to provide land, start with them. They are homeless after they migrated from here. Why are you providing land to outsiders? Why are you importing slums from outside?” she asked.
BJP spokesperson Altaf Thakur said it was ironic that some regional parties can’t digest ‘pro-poor steps like giving land to landless and homes to homeless’.
