Chandigarh
Dissatisfied with the BJP government’s justification for denotification of the Dadupur-Nalvi canal project, the opposition, the INLD and the Congress, today staged a walkout even as Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar conceded, after much dilly-dallying, that the amendment that permits denotification was awaiting the President’s assent.

Replying to the adjournment motion on scrapping of the Dadupur Nalvi project on the second day of the Assembly session, Khattar was pushed to a corner by the Congress on the section under which the project was denotified and the land was being offered back to farmers.

Khattar said the amendment to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, was pending with the President for assent. However, not willing to accept the allegation of illegality in the denotification, Khattar responded by saying, “Sehmati ka koi section nahi hota (agreement does not need sections)”.

He went a step further and said “Jab miaan-biwi raazi toh kya karayga kaazi” in response to the Congress query on the rule under which land was being offered back to the farmers. Khattar said he could provide names and phone numbers of the farmers who came to thank him at his residence yesterday for denotifying the “unfruitful” project.

“Anybody who suspects that they were not farmers can take the list from me,” he maintained. The opposition, since yesterday, has been claiming that the farmers’ thanksgiving was a staged show to justify the government’s decision of scrapping the project.

Khattar said the project received two setbacks—in 2004 when it was decided to reverse the decision of keeping all channels lined and again in 2008 when land acquisition for minors was dropped.

Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar chipped in by stating that depriving farmers of 1,019 acres of fertile land for irrigating 357 acres of land was a bad proposition.

While the INLD staged a walkout when the CM was still justifying the denotification, the Congress staged a walkout to express its frustration over the illegality of the order with no Act to back it.

Earlier, the adjournment motion was moved by Leader of Opposition Abhay Chautala who said that a CAG report cannot be basis to denotify a public-welfare project.

Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda attacked Khattar for resorting to denotification to save payment of enhancement costs as directed by the court. “The BJP denotified 3,600 acres of land in Bawal for the same reason and has repeated this for the canal project. Either the government should take back its decision or when the Congress returns to power, it will reconstruct the canal,” he said.

CLP leader Kiran Choudhry sought to know how the government would lay pipes to recharge ground water on private land. Khattar quickly wrapped up his reply without addressing them after which the Congress staged a walkout.