Kerala - Alappuzha   

Congress launches stir to restore land to farmers

ALAPPUZHA: The clock has turned a full circle in Kuttanad, literally. In a region where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had clashed with landlords to claim land for the landless farmers, its rivals, the Congress on Friday initiated an agitation to reclaim the same land from resort groups to which a CPI (M)-ruled cooperative bank had auctioned off the land.

The Congress, led by Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Ramesh Chennithala, erected their party’s tricolour flag in the R-Block of Kuttanad to signal the start of an agitation to reclaim 154 acres of land from resort groups and other private parties and to hand over the same to farmers from whom the land was taken over by the Kuttamangalam Service Cooperative Bank after the farmers allegedly failed to repay loans.

The land, according to the Congress, was assigned as surplus land to 217 landless agricultural workers in Kuttanad after being restored through a popular struggle under the leadership of the present Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan in 1970. However, with farmers unable to repay loans, the cooperative bank auctioned off the land “illegally”.

Inaugurating the agitation near Kainakary in Kuttanad, Mr. Chennithala said the very fact that Mr. Achuthanandan and his Government remained silent on the issue, even after Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy had submitted memoranda to the Government demanding an inquiry, was proof that the CPI (M) was involved or was trying to hush up the “shady deals” of the cooperative bank, which is governed by Achuthanandan loyalists.

Alleging that the loans never reached the poor farmers but illegitimately went to supporters of the CPI (M) and that the farmers were suffering due to such surreptitious deals, Mr. Chennithala said the Congress would not call off the agitation until a comprehensive inquiry was conducted into the issue and the culprits were brought to the book.

Accusing the Left Democratic Front Government of being “handcuffed” by the land mafia, the KPCC president said Mr. Achuthanandan, if he was sincere in his promise that the “land mafia and land banks” would be driven out of the State, should interfere immediately in the issue and help the poor farmers regain their land.

Alappuzha MLA K.C. Venugopal, Alappuzha DCC president A.A. Shukoor and other senior Congress leaders were present.

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