NEW DELHI: Warning that any attempts to carry out demolitions in the Capital's rural Lal Dora and extended Lal Dora areas would be strongly resisted by the villagers, the Delhi Gram Vikas Panchayat on Friday declared that a law and order problem would occur and the Sheila Dikshit Government would be responsible for the consequences.

Addressing a joint press conference here, the Panchayat leaders threatened to take to streets and if things are not sorted out. Charging the Government with having failed to take up the issue of villagers effectively, they said that while on the one hand Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit talked of bringing about an Ordinance to regularise all unauthorised constructions and illegal buildings, on the other her Government had moved a proposal to take back the 1963 notification of the Union Government that bars application of building by-laws in Lal Dora and extended Lal Dora areas.

Addressing the press conference, Nationalist Congress Party leader Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Delhi Gram Vikas Panchayat president Chaudhary Mir Singh and its general secretary Chaudhary Yudhvir Singh said that despite an assurance by the Chief Minister, the Delhi Government had not intervened as a party in the demolition case in High Court and there had been no proper representation of facts before the court.

Mr. Bidhuri said all preparations had been completed for the February 19 Mahapanchayat to be held at Rajghat. "It is shocking that the Delhi Government has not taken up the cause of the villagers and the Chief Minister always talks about blaming the MCD or splitting the Corporation instead of concentrating on the main issue. The 1963 notification exempts villages from application of building by-laws. If any attempt is made to undertake demolitions in villages, it would have serious consequences," he warned.

Mr. Bidhuri said, "The real anti-rural and anti-poor face of the Sheila Dikshit Government has been exposed. The Congress Government has stabbed the people of villages in the back and they will not take all this lying down". He also said that when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi were talking of protecting villages and the rights of the villagers, the Sheila Government was taking every possible action to destroy the character of villages.

Chaudhary Mir Singh said the Government had failed miserably to protect the interest of the villagers and not fulfilled any of the promises made to the people of rural areas during the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. They failed to waive off house tax, regularise extended abadi areas, extended Lal Dora areas, enhance land compensation at par with market rates and provide employment to one member of the family whose land has been acquired. "The Government should protect the rural character of the villages and not allow them to be urbanised. Even all those villages that have been urbanised should be reverted back to rural category and house tax and building by-laws should not apply there," the agitated rural leader said.

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