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
