Land ordinance tabled, uproar in Lok Sabha

New Delhi: A united opposition on Monday charged the Centre with thrusting a lenient land acquisition law on the country through the “backdoor” as government tabled the re-promulgated Ordinance in the Lok Sabha.

Protests against the bill began soon after Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Pratap Rudy tabled the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance in the Lok Sabha.

“We feel that this ordinance was not required as the government has been trying to impose this on the people again and again and specially prorogued the Rajya Sabha as they wanted to re-promulgate it. You want to pass the bill through backdoor,” Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress leader of the house, said.

Trinamool Congress leader Sudip



Badopadhyay said his party was completely against the bill.  Both Congress and Trinamool Congress walked out of the house in protest against the bill. 

The ordinance, which was first promulgated on December 31, 2014, could not become a law in the first half of the budget session of Parliament due to stiff opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

The land acquisition ordinance was re-promulgated on April 3, a day before it was to lapse.  Members of the Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Revolutionary Socialist Party, and Samajwadi Party trooped near the Speaker’s podium and asked the government to take back the land ordinance.

Rudy told the House that tabling the ordinance in the Lok Sabha was a constitutional process and the opposition was raising the issue for political gains.