Empty vessel makes terrible noise

Land-grab: Gowda vows to complain to Kalam, CJI
Deccan Herald

At the Daridra Narayan rally organised by the JD(S), Mr Gowda said the party would provide free legal assistance to the affected.

Former prime minister and JD (S) supremo H D Deve Gowda on Saturday declared that he will take the issue of land-grabbing to the President of India and the Chief Justice of India to provide justice for the poor, living in and around the hi-tech city of Bangalore.

“I will not keep quiet. Injustice has been meted out to the poor”, Mr Gowda said at a rally of ‘Daridra Narayana’ (convention of urban poor) organised by the JD (S) at Palace Grounds. My intention of meeting the President and the Chief Justice of India is to apprise them of the plight of the poor, who have suffered at the hands of land-grabbers. They (poor) have been shunted from their dwellings overnight by land-grabbers and joint venture firms.

Mr Gowda announced that the JD (S) would provide free legal assistance to the poor in fighting the land grabbers. A legal cell with a senior advocate will be set up in the JD (S) office. Two other advocates will also be hired for assistance. The party itself will bear the cost of legal advice and is ready to pay as much as Rs 20,000 per month, Mr Gowda said. He also vowed to visit two slums a month in Bangalore.

“Cases pertaining to nearly 3,000 acres of land, which has been grabbed by the land mafia is pending in various courts. Though the courts have said that status quo should be maintained, construction activity has been taken up in many lands. Who should be blamed for this?” he asked.

Nearly 600 fake decrees had been created, he said. The land mafia had gobbled several thousands of acres by creating fake decrees with the connivance of revenue officials, he said.

Mr Gowda also said that he would write to Chief Minister N Dharam Singh on the land-grabbing issue. He would urge him to take up a programme for the poor, he said.

‘Not to trouble govt’

“I have launched a campaign against land-grabbing not with an eye on the elections or to remove the Dharam Singh government in the State, but to ensure that the rights of the poor are protected,” Mr Gowda said. “I have no intention to destabilise the government,” he added.

In his nearly one-and-a-half hour address interspersed with sarcasm at the raw deal meted out to the poor and the slum-dwellers by the previous Congress government, he charged the previous government with working against the interests of the poor.

In a sarcastic reference to a former Congress chief minister, Mr Gowda said that he was not concerned about the ‘West End Narayana’, who spent a lavish life for five years.

I am concerned about the ‘Daridra Narayanas’. He also said that the Congress-led coalition government was much better than the previous government. Mr Dharam Singh has not grabbed any land, he said.

A booklet “Priority to the poor, it is our commitment” released by the JD(S) on the occasion highlights the programmes for the poor initiated by the JD(S) government between 1994 and 1999.

Setting an agenda for the JD (S) ministers, Mr Gowda issued instructions to the ministers present on the dais that they should ensure that the Government’s programmes reached the poor and the oppressed sections.

Taking a dig at the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, he said the budget presented by the UPA had nothing for the poor.

“Let Congress President Sonia Gandhi personally visit the slums in Bangalore to study their plight. I too will accompany her”, Mr Gowda said. “If the UPA government has any genuine concern, it should float a corpus fund for the welfare of slum-dwellers”, he said.