Farmers up in arms
HUNDREDS OF farmers staged a dharna here at the Divisional Commissioner?s office, protesting against acquisition of their land under the Maitreyi project. They alleged they had not been adequately compensated.. State vice-president of the BJP Shiv Pratap Shahi and many other party leaders led the dharna. Expressing his views on the occasion, Shahi said there was a deep-rooted conspiracy by the government to make farmers landless labours. He said in 1996, land was acquired at Bodhgaya in Bihar by the Maitreyi project Trust.

HUNDREDS OF farmers staged a dharna here at the Divisional Commissioner’s office, protesting against acquisition of their land under the Maitreyi project.
They alleged they had not been adequately compensated..
State vice-president of the BJP Shiv Pratap Shahi and many other party leaders led the dharna.
Expressing his views on the occasion, Shahi said there was a deep-rooted conspiracy by the government to make farmers landless labours. He said in 1996, land was acquired at Bodhgaya in Bihar by the Maitreyi project Trust. Now, the Uttar Pradesh Government was following in the footsteps of the Bihar Government, he said.
Launching a tirade against the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government, Shahi said to install a statue of Lord Buddha, the State Government had posed a problem of survival for thousands of small farmers. He said establishment of the statue on Deoria-Kasia route would further aggravate the problems and farmers would be deprived of their livelihood.
Shahi said a Bhumi Bachao Kisan Sangarsh Samiti had been constituted by farmers of Kushinagar to save land. He reiterated that farmers would strongly oppose the project at every level.
Former cabinet minister Shiv Pratap Shukla and representative of BJP MP Yogi Aditayanath Shital Pandey said India was agriculture based country, but the State Government was least concern about problems of farmers.
BJP leaders also handed over a memorandum to divisional commissioner Anil Kumar and demanded to stop the project.