India’s Opposition threatens to derail Modi Government’s ambitious land bill

Vice President of India’s main opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi

Reuters: Vice President of India’s main opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, on Friday (17) said that his party would not let the Government pass a controversial land bill in Parliament.

His remarks came two days after opposition parties boycotted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest attempt to build consensus around a business-friendly land bill, boding badly for his ambitious agenda of economic reform in a Parliament session that starts next week.

Almost half of the 31 chief ministers spurned Modi’s invitation to meet him in New Delhi to discuss the proposal to make it easier to buy farmland for development.

Addressing a party workers’ meeting in the pink city of Jaipur in northwestern Rajasthan state, Gandhi accused Modi government of snatching farm land from poor farmers to benefit big businessmen.

“When it came to farmers, they said we will pass the ordinance. They passed the ordinance thrice. They do not have any power. We will not let the government pass the bill in Parliament. Not even an inch of land will go to the government, said Gandhi.

Modi has made the reform a central plank of his economic agenda, but the opposition says the bill is anti-farmer and has blocked it in the Rajya Sabha for months.

In his first year in office, Modi has made life easier for Indian businesses by cutting red tape, but opposition protests have slowed his efforts at structural economic reforms he says are needed to make India a leading global economy.

Modi has spent significant political capital trying to push the land law through Parliament.

A leader of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Nalin Kohli, dismissed Congress party’s opposition to the land bill as a farce.

“In the larger interest of Indians, the poor people, farmers, whatever legislations should be passed, that Parliament should. Parties do work together on it but wherever there is opposition for the sake of opposition the people of India will see through that, said Kohli.

The proposed changes to the law would mean projects in defence, rural electrification, rural housing and industrial corridors would not need to seek the consent of 80 percent of the affected landowners as mandated. 

They will also be exempt from holding a social impact study involving public hearings - procedures that industry executives say can drag out the acquisition process for years. Compensation to landholders will stay at four times the market price.

In the session due to begin on July 21, the government also plans to pass the biggest tax overhaul since independence, and may introduce labour bills aimed at job creation.

But the Congress party has other ideas, and wants the prime minister to address Parliament about what it says is corruption and influence trafficking by senior members of his party and government, before any debates on legislation.