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| Encroachers on Govt lands belonging to rival parties join hands | | | Early Times Political Analyst
Jammu | May 22
News Analysis
You have to lose nothing but spare demolition
While prosperity very often brings division among the partners, adversity leads to unity even among the rivals when their common interests are hurt. True to this, forgetting infighting between the two major ruling coalition partners, Congress and PDP, the leaders of two parties joined hands on Wednesday to put resistance against the demolition drive launched by the officials in the irrigation department of buildings constructed on the land belonging to the irrigation department, after illegally encroaching the same.
The elected congress MLA from Gandhi Nagar constituency Raman Bhalla and the nominated woman MLA of PDP Mrs. Shanti Devi joined hands to resist the move by the authorities to vacate encroachments on the claimed irrigation land and demolishing the superstructure constructed on the same. In the process a portion of the house belonging to PDP MLA at Shastri Nagar was also demolished, which led to commotion, with a long posse of Congress and PDP workers in the area holding joint demonstration against the action of the authorities. More than 700 residence of the locality led by PDP MLA Shanti Devi a portion of whose house, allegedly on the encroached land, was also demolished and other senior leaders of the party resented the move and raised slogans against the Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and burnt his effigy. The Congress MLA from the area, Raman Bhalla with his supporters, some of whom were directly affected by the action, is reported to have joined the demonstrators and put up physical resistance by standing before the bulldozer in operation to demolish some buildings.
According to the irrigation department they were acting on the order of the Double Bench of J&K High Court to vacate 28 kanals of land comprising 68 houses in Shastri Nagar and Rampura area which are raised illegally on the irrigation department land. The revenue authorities maintain that earlier notices were served on the defaulters to remove the structures illegally constructed on the encroached land but as they failed to do the needful the action to demolish the superstructure was taken. The owners of the houses on the other hand maintained that they had been living there for the last 60 years and irrigation department has no role whatsoever with the land in question and that a tug of war has been going on between the irrigation department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development with the latter claiming the land to be belonging to it and that they have already paid to the housing department for the lands under their occupation and on which they have raised buildings, spending a large sum of hard earned money.
Leaving aside the varying versions of the parties in dispute, the moot question is as to why the authorities in the first place allowed the buildings to be constructed on the alleged encroached land and why they had remained sleeping over the matter for many years. And then what punishment is being given to those authorities in the government who turned blind eye to the encroachments on the government land taking place and structure raised on the same illegally? Have these structures been raised with the connivance of the concerned authorities? Whether the building plans have been improved by the Jammu Municipal Corporation? All these questions are quite relevant in the light of the fact that the concerned authorities, to start with sleep over the encroachments being effected on the government lands and illegal structures being raised on the same and invariable even connive with the illegal action in lieu of hash up money paid to them.
Nevertheless joining hands by the PDP nominated women MLA Mrs. Shanti Devi and the elected MLA of the Congress from the constituency, at a time when the two parties miss no opportunity to run down each other and are preparing to fight no hold barred electoral battle in the coming few months, has an element of irony. A slogan needs be coined, "Encroachers belonging to any party join hands-----you have to lose nothing but spare demolition and vacation of encroachments." |
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