CHANDIGARH, July 21 — The Punjab Congress has announced a full-scale statewide agitation against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s land pooling policy, starting with a major dharna in Mohali. The move marks an escalation in political resistance, as opposition parties and farmer unions gear up to challenge what they allege is an attempt to bypass compensation laws and deprive landowners of their rights.
The party has laid out plans for rallies across Punjab and political congregations in every village where land is expected to be acquired under the initiative. The Mohali dharna will be the second major public event organized by the Congress in recent weeks, following a large rally in Ludhiana, where the government aims to acquire over 24,000 acres of farmland for urban development.
State Congress president Amrinder Raja Warring said his party would hold sit-ins at every site identified for land acquisition. “The AAP government is trying to evade provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, under which it is bound to pay one and a half times the market value of the land along with compensation for rehabilitation and resettlement,” Warring said on Sunday.
He accused the Bhagwant Mann-led government of designing the policy to “grab land without spending a penny” and using it to “sell to private companies and fund its populist promises in the final year of its term.”
The land pooling policy, launched in May this year, has drawn mounting criticism from political parties and some farmer groups. The scheme, which the government says is entirely voluntary, proposes the acquisition of over 65,000 acres for new township development around urban hubs like Ludhiana.
The AAP government claims the policy is aimed at promoting planned urban growth, offering farmers and landowners plots of higher market value than the land they contribute. However, opposition leaders including those from the Congress, BJP, and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) allege that the policy is a backdoor tactic to facilitate private developers, encouraging corruption and undermining farmer rights.
Senior Congress leader and former minister Balbir Singh Sidhu termed the initiative “anti-farmer” and called for its immediate rollback. “The party’s entire leadership, including Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa, MPs and MLAs, will join the protest in Mohali,” he said.
Meanwhile, the ruling AAP has dismissed the allegations, accusing the Opposition of running a “misinformation campaign” to mislead farmers. “To counter this, we are reaching out to villagers to explain the benefits of the policy. There is no forcible acquisition involved,” AAP spokesperson Neel Garg said.
Despite the government’s outreach, farmer unions remain unconvinced. Several groups have announced plans for a parallel statewide protest beginning July 30, bolstered by the support of Opposition parties.
The land pooling policy has emerged as a political flashpoint in Punjab, with both sides digging in for what appears to be an extended confrontation over land rights, compensation norms, and the direction of the state’s urban planning model.
