Government officials’ Assurance: Temporary end to the dharna of the Land cultivators!
The indefinite dharna led by the Karnataka Raitha Sangha (AIKKS), which had been going on for the past four days on the Gurugunta Highway demanding the granting of title to the Bhager Hukum cultivators of 34 villages in Lingasagur taluk, was temporarily withdrawn today on the specific assurance given by former MLA D. S. Hoolageri and the taluk administration on behalf of the government.
The indefinite dharna movement had started with intense anger against the state government and committee president BJP MLA Manappa Vajjal, who had unfairly cancelled 895 applications of SC, ST and backward classes who had been cultivating government land for decades. For the past two days, two rounds of serious talks were held at the dharna camp between the activists and the revenue and forest officials, mediated by former MLA DS Hoolgeri.
1) Proceeding with the review of rejected applications 2) Cultivation of Parampook, forest, Kharej Khata land should not be stopped 3) Forming Gram Sabhas in 7 Gram Panchayats under the Forest Rights Act-2006 and Calling applications from ST and forest dwellers.
4) Conducting a survey of all lands declared as Parampook – revenue and forest and smoothing the way for regularisation. 5) Not obstructing the roads of all farmers in the forest area.
6) Finding and giving 64 acres of surplus land to 16 beneficiaries of Mallapur village, which was allotted 44 years ago.
7) It was promised that work would be started by February 5th to resolve the demands such as registering cases against forest and government land encroachers and mining mafias. If this promise remained a promise, the government was warned that the highway blockade movement would be started again from February 5th.
The farmers’ struggle was led by R. Manasayya, M. Gangadhar, Gururaj Gowdur, Tipparaja Gejjalagatta, Veerabhadrappa Torlabenchi, Basavaraj Badiger, Aadesh Naganur, Hanumanthappa Pirigara, Chidananda, Tippanna Chikkahesaroor, Hanumanthappa Poojary, Rashid Jamadar, etc.
From the government side, Assistant Commissioner Shri Basavanneppa, DySP Dattatreya Karnad, Tehsildar Sathyaman, Zonal Forest Officer Subhash Chandra Nayak, Block Congress President Govinda Nayak, Police Inspector Chandrashekhar Ganiger etc. were present.
On an average, government land cultivators from 15-20 villages were involved in this struggle. The dharna camp witnessed a big debate in the last two days regarding the cultivation rights and clearance of forest revenue lands.
Basavaraj Badiger
Taluk Secretary
Karnataka Raitha Sangha (AIKKS) Lingasguru, Karnataka
