Mangaluru, Jan 27: With an eye on polls to the looming Zilla Panchayat and Taluk Panchayat polls in Karnataka, the Dakshina Kannada district unit of BJP has decided to hold a convention of kumki land holders at Puttur on February 6.
Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel told media persons on Wednesday that the convention will strive to drive home an apparent lacunae in implementing an assurance given by the Congress in its manifesto that kumki rights will be granted to such land holders and the subsequent flip-flop of the Congress state government on it.
He said, this explicit assurance is very much part of the manifesto issued by Sullia Block Congress Committee to the electorate ahead of the last assembly polls. Accusing the Congress of reneging on its election promise, Nalin said it was the Congress that successfully scuttled an attempt by the then BJP government which had decided to confer the rights to kumki land holders by using the offices of then Governor H R Bharadwaj.
Noting that kumki land, or contiguous patch of pasture land adjacent to an agricultural property is very much essential for sustained agriculture activity, Nalin said no farmer can undertake any worthwhile agricultural practice in the absence of such land. It is important for farmers to have access and rights to kumki land where they can allow their cattle to graze, collect leaves and other natural waste to produce compost and for other allied agricultural practices, he noted.
Describing the move by government to curtail this rights of farmers as clear indicator of its anti-farmer stand, Nalin said the Congress had given an assurance that they would clear the move to grant kumki rights to farmers when their government was in place.
Asserting that the BJP will not allow the state government to dilute any provision or place unreasonable restrictions of granting kumki rights to farmers, he said these issues will be deliberated in the convention.
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