We’re not politically motivated: Manesar farmers responding to Congress allegations

The farmers have been fighting against acquisition of their land under the previous state government

Members of Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, Manesar, said on Tuesday that they are not politically motivated and are not trying to malign the image of the previous Congress government and its leaders for money.

Manesar villagers address a press conference responding to state Congress leaders’ allegations of fighting land acquisition at the behest of the BJP. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

The Samiti members briefed the media in Gurgaon after state Congress leaders held a press conference in Chandigarh. They alleged that Manesar farmers fighting a case against land acquisition are acting at the behest of the BJP to malign the previous government’s image.

Terming the CBI case in Manesar land deals a conspiracy against former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, 11 Congress MLAs on Tuesday threatened to start a massive stir against the state government if Hooda is implicated in a ‘false’ case.

Senior MLA Raghubir Singh Kadian and former speaker Kuldeep Sharma said that the BJP government had concealed several facts from the CBI before recommending the case to it.

Om Prakash, former sarpanch, Manesar and main complainant, said, “Congress leaders told the media that I did not have any land in my name. This is incorrect as I was one of the farmers forced to sell land to builders under pressure in 2004-07 through land acquisition notices sent by the Haryana government.”

In 2004-05, the Haryana government had issued land acquisition notices under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act. The farmers alleged it was a pressure tactic for them to sell their lands cheap to private builders.

“We told courts that we were forced to send 400 acres for just Rs100 crore when its market price stood somewhere around Rs1,600 crore then. The government wanted to acquire 912 acres in Manesar, Lakhnoula and Naurangpur village. Except our 400 acres, most of the land was released,” said Dharam Kumar, samiti member.

On Tuesday, Congress MLAs in Chandigarh held that the government acted in such a tearing hurry in the case that even chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar never obtained any report or comments from any of the departments concerned such as Huda and HSIIDC, before ordering the CBI probe.

The CBI had registered the case in 2015 and begun investigations.