Land bill: Union minister attacks Rahul Gandhi with Vadra barb

Chandigarh, April 19: Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Sunday attacked the Congress party, saying it has no right to raise the land bill issue since its leadership had remained mute spectator to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra acquiring land in various states at throwaway prices. She reacted within hours of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, at a rally in New Delhi, criticising Prime Minister rendra Modi and his government over the new land acquisition bill. “The Congress has lost the moral right to question the land acquisition bill when it has remained mute spectator to Robert Vadra’s trick wherein his Rs.1 lakh (worth) company purchased land of poor farmers. First Congress should ensure that the poor farmers’ land is given back to them from Vadra,” Badal told media on the sidelines of an event in Bathinda district in Punjab, 225 km from here.

Vadra has been in the thick of controversies over land purchase of hundreds of acres in Harya and Rajasthan. Both states had Congress governments when Vadra and his companies went on a land-buying spree. In certain cases, Vadra and his companies sold the land to others, including realty companies, for huge profits running into millions of rupees. Calling the farmers’ rally of the Congress on the land bill a “flop show and mere drama”, the food processing minister said the Congress was only trying to mislead farmers. (IANS)