Siddaramaiah urges Modi to withhold ordinance on land reforms act

Bengaluru: Former Chief Minister and Opposition Leader in the Assembly Siddaramaiah requested the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prevail upon Chief Minister B.S.Yediyurappa to withhold the ordinance related to the Land Reforms Act.

Mr Siddaramaiah wrote a letter to the Prime Minister stating that said ordinance to amend the Karnataka Land Reforms Act 1961, removing restrictions on non-agriculturist purchasing agriculture land and doubling the ceiling on land holdings make an adverse impact on the farming community.

The decision taken by the Karnataka government is unilateral without taking the farming community into confidence. The amendment is very high impact, needs to be debated in the Assembly before being implemented, Mr Siddaramaiah stated in the letter.

The ordinance will have a multi-pronged effect on farmers and the political economy of Karnataka. In the state historical efforts to make the tiller as the owner of the land will be undone and pave the era of rich owning the land, Mr Siddaramaiah has stated.

The Government has come up with corruption in bureaucracy and investments to the agricultural sector as the reasons for the amendment. This exposes the incapability of government to contain corrupt practice and instead weaken the farming community, Opposition leader explained in said letter.

Further, he stated that farmers are again vulnerable at the hands of wealthy and powerful people. They have forcibly sell the small holdings of their land to the rich. Instead of strengthening the farming sector, the BJP government is trying to weaken it through the ordinance, Mr Siddaramaiah said.