Senior Punjab BJP leader Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina said the state government was hell-bent on ruining Punjab’s farmers by grabbing their land to hand it over to the real estate mafia. He said the party would fight for the cause of farmers by staging protests and exploring legal options. Chinna alleged that in Amritsar district alone, more than 4400 acres of land is being grabbed by the government in the name of land pooling. “Our party is committed to fight for the cause of the farmers,” he said, adding that more than 75,000 acres of land is being taken up throughout Punjab by the state government.During the farmers’ agitation against land pooling under the aegis of the Zameen Bachao Sangharsh Committee, two BJP leaders Gurdev Sharma Debi and Balkar Singh Sidhu have already addressed farmers’ gatherings around Ludhiana. Leaders of the SKM who are opposed to the BJP dismiss this as a one-off incident but leaders of the saffron party have been seen at various protests organized by farmer unions along with others.In 2022, the AAP had stormed to power with an overwhelming majority due to the tactical support of some farmer unions, especially from the Malwa region.Regarding the land pooling scheme, Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said it is completely farmer-friendly and based on mutual consent. “Not a single inch of land will be forcibly taken from any farmer. Whether to give land or not is entirely up to the farmers’ will,” he said.Criticizing the Congress, BJP and Akali Dal, Cheema alleged that during the previous governments in the past decade and a half, thousands of illegal colonies were developed in Punjab, where even basic facilities like roads, electricity, water and sewerage were absent.He alleged that in the last ten years, with the collusion of senior leaders of the Akali-BJP and Congress governments, land mafias illegally developed colonies on approximately 30,000 acres of land across various cities.Cheema said that keeping in mind the hardships faced by the common people, the AAP government decided to acquire land itself through a land pooling policy. This will benefit both farmers and the public, he added.
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