Land'ing an untenable argument: Priyanka's crash landing

What a pity! And what a comparison Priyanka is making between the land grabbing of her husband with the land development by Adanis in Gujarat.  What Robert Vadra did was something that the Sicilian Mafiosi does in the homeland of his mother- in-law.  He bought the land without making payments and passed on to someone else for a profit, coercing the administration to oil the deal.

 He did not develop the land nor employ people nor show any social orientation, but in turn increased his earning and increased the land cost. And in trying to defend this sleazy deal, Priyanka is comparing it to a case of land allotment, development, employment generation, overall growth and social upliftment.  She has nose dived and crash landed her plane of political argument.

Mr Adani has already clarified that most of the land to his company was allotted by the Congress Govt in 1993.  Modi Govt has allotted only 5000 acres of land in 2006 for SEZ project, which was sanctioned by the current UPA Government after due diligence and observance of necessary procedures.

What Priyanka and Congress should note is that more than Rs 40,000 corers of investment came to Mundra during the last 10 yeas.  The project has generated more than15000 direct and indirect employment , over Rs 5000 to Rs 6000 corers of annual revenue generation to the Govt of India through excise and custom duties and above all, with  the development of a barren and marshy area,  the land cost benefit has directly accrued to local villagers. 

 Further, as recent as on 24th April 2014, the Gujarat High court refused  to interfere with the industrial policy of the Gujarat Government and rejected a PIL challenging the 'soft loan' and “land  allocation” to Tatas for the Nano plant  project in Sanand near Ahmedabad. The bench of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya in its order stated that "State's industrial policy has not been found inappropriate in connection with the land allocation for the establishment of Tata's Nano car plant, in which this court shall not intervene,"

Priyanka's love to keep her family peace is understandable. But her comparison of her husband's land deals with a national development plan is deplorable. In fact, she is drawing more attention to her husband's shady deal and is making him further infamous by taking the line of argument that she has.

VK Saxena

NCCL

Ahmedabad