The BJP which recently faced an embarrassing situation on the land allotment issue in Karnataka is finding the Haryana lease case as godsend. It forced two adjournments in the Rajya Sabha on August 3 creating a ruckus during the zero hour while outside the House demanding the resignation of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for allegedly favouring the Gandhi family. The state’s main opposition party Om Parkash Chautala-led Indian National Lok Dal has held state-wide demonstrations against the lease.

What are the facts behind this controversy? The land was leased out to RGCT in 2009 after the village panchayat passed a resolution. The former sarpanch Surender Prakash who had signed the lease deed in 2009 and the serving sarpanch Azad Singh in a statement on August 4 said that “the land was barren tract and was leased out to Mahabir Singh of village Wazirabad on June 11, 2004 for five years at the annual lease of Rs.15,200 per acre. It was only after the lease deed expired on June 10, 2009 that we passed a resolution to give it on lease to the RGCT for an annual lease of Rs. 5 lakh per acre. We have also received Rs.30 lakh so far.” What is significant is that after the state cabinet decided to reduce the lease amount from Rs.3 lakh to Rs.1,000 per acre, the RGCT rejected the offer insisting on paying the normal official rate of Rs.3 lakh per acre.

The lease issue has divided the panchayat. While one section led by the former and the present sarpanches has justified the decision to lease out the land to RGCT, another section now threatens to approach the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the decision.

The BJP is trying to make the lease a national issue. After a visit to Ulhawas on August 5, the former BJP President Rajnath Singh said “The state-sponsored racket of issuing Sections 4, 6 and 9 notifications to acquire farmers land and subsequently releasing it from acquisition proceedings after big builders have purchased the land in panic sale from hapless farmers, has even surpassed the definition of scam”.

Rajnath’s contention is valid so far as it concerns releasing the land from acquisition proceedings after it has been purchased by big builders from the panicky farmers. Even the High court has taken exception in many cases to such releases which benefited the big builders and passed strictures against the state government.

However, Rajnath’s stand against leasing out land to a charitable Trust for setting up an eye hospital is blatantly unjustified.

It is said that Indian politicians are the biggest hypocrites. They indulge in double talk. Both the BJP and the INLD leaderships have also adopted double standards in the case of leasing out land to the RGCT.

For instance, the Prem Kumar Dhumal-led BJP Himachal Pradesh government has allotted 96 bighas of the government’s high-valued prime land on the Kandaghat-Chail road to Baba Ram Dev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust at Sadhopul for a paltry Rs.17.13 lakh. On the one hand, the BJP is criticizing the leasing of Ulhawas panchayat land for 33 years to the RGCT for opening an eye hospital to be run on no-profit-no-loss basis and also to provide free treatment to the poor. On the other hand, the land to Baba Ramdev’s Trust has been allotted on 99 years perpetual lease not for any public utility but for commercial activities.

The land was gifted by the Maharaja of Patiala to the state government to be used for the benefit of children. Capt. Amarinder Singh, Punjab Congress President whose family donated the land has asked Dhumal to cancel the lease to Ram Dev’s Trust.

Rajnath Singh was clueless when, during his visit to Ulahwas, was asked by newsmen about the gifting of over 30 kanal of shamlat land by Gurgaon district’s Sadhrana village panchayat to the People For Animals Society for the construction of Maneka Gandhi Veterinary Hospital when the BJP was a coalition partner in Haryana government. The bovine-loving BJP leaders seem to care for animals more than human beings.

BJP President Nitin Gadkari’s statement that if B.S. Yeddyurappa had to resign as Karnataka Chief Minister due to denotification of land, the Hooda government should also resign for denotifying the five acres and leasing it out to the RGCT is self-contradictory. Yeddyurappa had denotified the land for allotment not for any charitable or public purpose but to help his kin for amassing assets. Last year Gadkari had saved Yeddyurappa from being ousted from power for showing favours to his kin despite strong opposition from his party MLAs and some senior central leaders. He had given the laughable argument for his benevolence that Yeddyurappa’s stand was “legally correct but morally wrong”.

But after Yaddyurappa’s indictment by Karnataka Lok Ayukt Santosh Hegde, Gadkari had to submit to the pressure of party MLAs and senior leaders for asking the Chief Minister to quit as otherwise the party’s tirade against the Congress-led UPA on corruption issue would have lost its credibility.

About the INLD’s opposition to leasing of land to the RGCT, the less said the better. Like the BJP, it has also adopted double standards on the issue. It has condemned the lease describing it as favouritism to the Gandhi family. But it has yet to explain the party supremo Om Parkash Chautala’s stand on gifting large chunks of panchayat lands by his government during 1999-2005 to the four Trusts named after his father Devi Lal. How he reacts after the Hooda government releases the details of such gifts is to be watched.

It is not only in the case under reference that politicians have adopted double standards. The phenomenon is country wide involving leaders of all political parties including the Congress. They indulge in double speak for political and pecuniary considerations. (IPA Service)