A week after her government cancelled allotment of land for a rail coach factory in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Saturday decided to return the land to the railways. The state government cancelled the land allotted for the factory on the grounds that there was resentment among farmers over land issues.
Announcing her decision, Mayawati said the decision to restore the 189.25 hectare of government land to the railways on lease for 90 years was taken by the state Cabinet after studying the report submitted by the her principal secretary.
She also said the cancellation had been done because the allotment had been made without the statutory approval of the Cabinet.
Accusing the Congress for playing up the issue for gaining political mileage in the name of development, Mayawati said the ?drama? over the land allotment was enacted by the Congress chief keeping in view the coming Lok Sabha polls.
Mayawati said a big reason for restoring the land back to the rail coach factory was that she wanted the Congress? ploy of one-upmanship to end in Rae Bareli itself. ?The Indian Railways had already acquired some 940 acre of private land directly from private land owners for the project and it was under their possession?, she said, adding, ?I, therefore, fail understand why the Congress leadership was busy blaming us for their failure to perform bhumi pujan at the site. If they wanted, they could have easily carried out the ?bhumi pujan? on that land,? she argued.
She further tried to score a point by announcing that she has written a letter to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking for a special package of Rs 5,000 crore for reviving the sick and closed industrial units in Rae Bareli and Sultanpur districts, the ?karambhoomi? of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi.