BJP forms panel to ‘save land, houses’ of people

BJP state president Rajeev Bindal has constituted a ‘Zameen Bachao, Makaan Bachao’ (Save Land, Save House) committee with an aim to protect the homes and lands of people of Himachal Pradesh. BJP spokesperson and MLA Trilok Jamwal has been appointed as the convener, state vice president Bihari Lal Sharma will be Member Secretary and Bilaspur MLA Sudhir Sharma, chief spokesperson Rakesh Jamwal, and Chopal MLA and state vice president Balbir Verma have been appointed as members of the committee.

Sharma said that daily wage workers and farmers in the state, who had been living on land provided by governments for generations, now faced the threat of eviction due to the Congress government’s indecisive approach. He added that the BJP was determined to take this struggle to a decisive stage so that they did not become landless again. “Our fight is solely for the deprived sections of society,” he added.

He said, “The issue stems from the provisions of the Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue Act, 1954. Section 163 of the Act empowers revenue officers to evict encroachers from common land, either on their own or on the application of a co-owner. The Act also had Section 163-A, which gave the state government powers to regularise encroachments on government land. However, on August 5, 2025, the Himachal Pradesh High Court struck down Section 163-A as unconstitutional. In September 2025, the Supreme Court ordered maintenance of status quo on the matter, giving temporary relief to farmers facing eviction.”

Sharma said, “Earlier, as part of a land regularisation policy, over 1.65 lakh people in the state had applied for regularisation of encroachments. The policy, introduced in 2002, allowed regularisation of up to five bighas of government land, later expanded by the BJP government through the addition of Section 163-A, permitting regularisation of 5 to 20 bighas.”