Land Bill: CPI hits out at PM Narendra Modi for attacking opposition on the issue

New Delhi, Mar 31: CPI today attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for using the official media to criticise the opposition stand against the amendments to the land acquisition law and not consulting political parties on the crucial matter.

"This government has neither consulted political parties, nor Parliament. .... The Prime Minister used the public broadcaster All India Radio to criticise the parties for their opposition to the amendments (proposed in the Land Bill)," CPI National Secretary D Raja said.

Maintaining that his party had opposed the ordinance on the land

, he said the CPI "is also opposed to the repromulgation of the ordinance on this issue."

He said almost the entire opposition parties had marched to the President to oppose the amendment bill and "the government should now wait for Parliament to decide on the issue which affects millions of poor people, especially the peasants."

Raja said the land issue was "crucial" and not just "a BJP versus Congress tussle" as he referred to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari's attack on the Congress for trying to "mislead" the country.

CPI, at its just concluded 22nd Party Congress in Puducherry, has called for rejection of the new land acquisition bill, alleging that it was brought by the NDA government to "snatch" multi-crop irrigated land from farmers.

It also said that such a law would pose a grave threat to food security in the coming days.

CPI also said the government's proposals for 18 industrial corridors would engulf over 35 per cent of cultivable land and pave the way for thousands of villages to disappear and crores of people to loose their livelihood, leading to a social chaos.

The party also called for forging the broadest possible unity to defeat the "nefarious" designs of BJP government and observe May 14 as a national protest day.

PTI