Rahul Gandhi derides BJP on land Bill U-turn

New Delhi, Aug 4

A day after 11 BJP members of a Joint Parliamentary Panel on the land Bill moved amendments to withdraw some controversial proposed alterations in the original Bill, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi mocked the ruling party for what it called their U-turn on Tuesday.

Deriding the Congress for “shouting, threatening, and finally, running off” under intense opposition to the Bill, he promised to keep up similar “heat” to demand resignations of three key leaders of the BJP in the central and state governments — Minister of External Affairs Sush Swaraj and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje over their alleged roles in the controversy surrounding Lalit Modi and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan over the multic-crore Vyapam recruitment scam.

"On the land issue, Congress stood in front of them. They (government) shouted, made too much noise, threatened and later made a U-turn and ran off," Gandhi said at a sit-in at the Parliament House to protest the Speaker’s decision suspending 25 Congress MPs.

“Similarly, on corruption, Vyapam, on the issue of Rajasthan Chief Minister and Sushma Swaraj (their roles in the controversy surrounding Lalit Modi, we will not minimise the pressure on them even if they throw us out of Parliament or do not let us enter Parliament," he said.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended 25 Congress parliamentarians on Monday after the refused to allow the House to function by protesting against Swaraj, Raje and Chouhan.

Rahul also warned the Central Government that the will 'gherao' them over the issues.

Reacting to these remarks, Rural Development Minister Birender Singh said: "Those who stand at 44 will speak only this language". He was mocking the Congress’s inability to garner more than 44 seats in Lok Sabha in the last general elections.

Both sides traded barbs even as the government showed its willingness to accept the panel’s recommendations on the land Bill, climbing down from its steadfast refusal to budge from its previous stand.  

All 11 BJP members moved amendments in Joint Committee of Parliament to retract their key amendments to the original 2013 Bill passed by the UPA. Some of the controversial amendments proposed by the incumbent Central Government include altering the consent clause consent clause and social impact assessment.

Meanwhile, the suspension of 25 Congress MPs and the subsequent opposition by several political parties is likely to affect the proceedings of the parliamentary panel on land Bill.

Congress sources said that four of the five MPs in the committee would to the meeting later in the day only to inform them they were boycotting it. — PTI