Hyderabad: AP CM Chandrababu Naidu and his ministers claim that majority of the villagers in Thullur Mandal are quite happy to handover their lands for capital city construction. Some of them even presented a silver crown to CM Chandrababu Naidu during his recent visit to Thullur and five farmers have handed over their pass books of their 162 acres of agricultural lands to him. He and his ministers blame that the YSR Congress party activists have set fire to the crops in Thullur Mandal to transfer the blame onto ruling TDP.

However, the people of Nidamarru and Penumaka villages of the mandal, who met Jagan Mohan Reddy, told him that they do not want to depart with their lands but police are harassing them to handover the lands to state government. They said the revenue officials are also threatening them that if they do not handover the lands to the government, they will be forcibly taken using appropriate laws. The farmers fear that police may file false cases against them. So, they seek Jagan Mohan Reddy and his party support.

He assured that his party will fight on their behalf with the state government to safeguard their rights. He told them that they need not afraid of police or anybody as they have all rights to keep their lands for themselves.

However, the ground reality is that even if the farmers are not willing to depart with their lands, still the state government can clinch their lands, as the Modi government amended the land acquisition bill-2014 recently.

Earlier, it was mandatory to take the consent of the land owners for the governments. There are many conditions in the bill that ensures the interests of the land owners. Even if the lands were taken by the government, there are certain clauses in the bill that guarantees a very attractive package to the land owners. But, Modi government has not only removed the ‘consent mandatory’ condition and also eases many conditions to enable the governments to take possession of anyone’s land for developing infrastructure, industrial purposes etc.

But, still the farmers have the chance to knock the court doors. If, Jagan Mohan Reddy is really willing to help the poor farmers, instead of politicizing it he should represent their cases in the High Court or Supreme Court.