Responding to a four-page letter in Hindi sent by Sonia last week, Gadkari, who is a key government points person on the controversial legislation, said that not a single acre of land was acquired under the Land Acquisition Law brought out by the UPA for irrigation and other rural and social infrastructure projects. He claimed the farmers remained dependent on rains all the time.
In her letter to Gadkari, the Congress chief had rejected his offer for a dialogue, saying it was a mockery as the BJP regime had unilaterally imposed the land ordinance. Dubbing the bill as "anti-farmer", she had accused the NDA government of "bending over backwards to favour industrialists".
Replying to criticism over the move to keep various projects out of the purview of social impact assessment, Gadkari said the UPA government willingly created a system in which big land acquisition projects were out of the assessment while welfare projects run by the state governments were mired in it.
"Under your land law, the government and private firms, which are allocated coal blocks, can acquire thousands of acres of land with doing social impact assessment, but states would have to go through this complex exercise if they need one acre of land for a school or hospital and rural road. Will it be proper?" Gadkari wrote.
"The Maharashtra chief minister belonging to your party had then sought that such a bill be studied by a group of chief ministers. But the UPA did not find it appropriate to evolve a consensus among its own CMs," he said.
"The amendments (to the Congress law) brought out by the Modi government were in line with the suggestions which were made by the chief ministers during a consultation exercise on June 27, 2014," Gadkari said, adding, "In your letter, you have tried to mislead the country over the Electricity Act 2003 as well."
This was Gadkari's second letter to Sonia. He had challenged the Congress leader and social activist Anna Hazare to an open debate on the Land Bill. Sonia had rejected the offer and chose to write to him. She had also led a protest march of over 100 leaders from 14 opposition parties earlier this month to the President's House in New Delhi.
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