E-Paper
Lok Sabha elections 2019: Told to ‘return’ compensation, 72 Manesar villages may boycott polls
The notices were served to meet the directive of a February 8 Supreme Court order to reverse the compensation amount in a time-bound manner by June 30.
Residents of 72 villages in Gurugram’s IMT Maneser area may boycott the Lok Sabha elections after the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) served notices to take back ₹35 lakh from a compensation amount given to the farmers for land acquisition.
The notices were served to meet the directive of a February 8 Supreme Court order to reverse the compensation amount in a time-bound manner by June 30.
The villagers have decided to hold a Mahapanchayat in Dhana village, and threatened that residents in Maneser area would boycott the Lok Sabha elections on May 12 if chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and sitting BJP MP from Gurugram Rao Inderjit Singh do not sort out the matter.
According to Moolchand, chief of Dhana village, HSIIDC acquired 1,700 acres for the Phase 1 of IMT-Maneser in 2002-03, fixing a compensation of ₹75 lakh per acre. “Since the compensation was low as compared to the market price, we challenged the HSIIDC decision in the ADJ’s court. On January 27, 2010, the court ruled in favour of the farmers and enhanced the compensation amount to ₹2.81 crore per acre,” Moolchand said.
“But we challenged the HSIIDC decision seven years ago. During this time, the market price of the said land increased and farmers moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which enhanced the per acre compensation by ₹37.4 lakh,” he said.
But since the farmers felt that the compensation amount was lower than the market rate, they moved the Supreme Court in 2013. The SC enhanced per acre compensation by ₹4 lakh.
“The farmers took the revised compensation from the HSIIDC, but a private company went to the apex court, urging that the compensation was too high compared to the current market price,” said Devender Master of Baskusla village. “The Supreme Court on February 8, directed the HSIIDC to take back the additional ₹35 lakh per acre. This reversal is unacceptable,” Master said.
According to another villager Suraj Pal Chauhan, each village has 7,000 to 8,000 permanent residents from Jat, Rajput and Yadav communities, who have the potential to disturb the political equation in the region, especially for the BJP.
