By Special Correspondent
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee President Jeetu Patwari on Saturday met farmers in Kalwar village, Kannauj tehsil of Dewas district, who have been staging a hunger strike for over a month to protest the acquisition of their fertile farmland for a railway project.
Several farming families in the region have been on continuous protest, determined to save their ancestral and cultivable land. The area falls under the parliamentary constituency of Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, yet no government representative has visited the aggrieved farmers, Patwari claimed.
Speaking to the farmers, Patwari said, “When farmers in the Agriculture Minister’s own constituency are forced to sit on hunger strike to protect their land, what could be a greater injustice? This ‘double-engine government’ is exploiting farmers and seizing their hard-earned property.”
Patwari reminded that the Land Acquisition Act was introduced during the Congress-led UPA government under Dr Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi, ensuring that farmers received 20% higher compensation than the market value for rural land, along with mandatory consent from local representatives.
He accused the BJP government of violating laws and due processes, saying, “Farmers are shedding tears while the Chief Minister and Union Agriculture Minister continue to ignore their plight. This is an insult to the people who feed our nation.”
Patwari demanded that the government immediately pay the true market value and fair compensation for all land acquired for railway and road projects.
He added that the Congress Party stands firmly with the farmers and will soon launch a ‘Kisan Nyay Yatra’ across Dewas, Sehore and Indore to raise their voices “from the streets to the Parliament.”
