By IANS,
Lucknow: Although Rahul Gandhi is yet to specify the date for his proposed ‘kisan panchayat’ in Bhatta-Parsaul in Greater Noida, Congressmen are gearing up for the show that is clearly intended to cock a snook at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s land acquisition policy.
On a call given by Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Rita Bahuguna Joshi, partymen have already begun to organise open house session of farmers at the grassroots level across the state .
The first such meeting, ‘Jan Sunvayee’ (public hearing), was held at Bakshi-ka-Talab tehsil, about 25 km from here, Thursday. Joshi herself led the meet, by personally hearing out farmers drawn from different corners of the sub-division.
Joshi has issued instructions to her party functionaries down the line to organise similar meets at various tehsils.
“The idea behind such meets is to hear out the grievances and complaints of farmers, who were at the receiving end because of the arbitrary policies of the state government,” Joshi told IANS here Friday.
Claiming success of Thursday’s experiment at Bakshi-ka-Talab, she said: “I think the response to our call for a ‘jan-sunvayee’ was very encouraging as lots of farmers turned up to narrate their tale of woe.”
According to her, “most farmers complained that their land was acquired forcibly without payment of adequate compensation”.
She said that some glaring cases of serious anomalies in the allotment of houses under the India Gandhi Awas Yojana were brought to light in Bakshi-ka-Talab.
Among other problems highlighted Thursday were those related to poor power supply, harrasment by the lower revenue staff and rampant corruption in issue of NREGS cards.
Barely a month ago, Rahul Gandhi sneaked into Bhatta-Parsaul village and staged a protest following which he was arrested.
The police-farmer clash in the village in May had left four farmers and two policemen dead.