State’s ULCRA haste shakes the Sena-BJP partnership

MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena-BJP alliance was strained in the assembly on Monday when the state government moved a motion to repeal the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act.

Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh’s motion to scrap the central legislation provoked intense criticism from the Opposition. He responded by saying that the government did not wish to hurry the motion and that it will be debated in the legislature’s next session.

In his intervention, Ramdas Kadam (Shiv Sena), the opposition leader, deprecated the government’s haste in dealing with the matter. But he agreed with the government’s stand, albeit with a proviso that a detailed debate be engaged in before the motion was adopted.

This prompted Eknath Khadse (BJP) to remark that it appeared as though the treasury benches and the Sena had fixed the match. Kadam hastily clarified that the Sena too was opposed to the manner in which the motion was being moved.

In the resolution moved before both Houses of the state legislature, the government had argued that the ULCRA should be repealed to free urban land for housing.

Deshmukh said the government had moved the resolution because it was mandated by the terms of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

Maharashtra had given an undertaking under the JNNURM to repeal the ULCRA, Deshmukh said, to ensure that the Centre did not suspend funds under the mission.

The assembly and council had adopted resolutions in October 1971 favouring the imposition of a ceiling on urban immovable property and the acquisition of such property in excess of the ceiling. Parliament passed the ULCRA in 1976.

But the Centre passed a law in 1999 repealing the ULCRA. This led to states such as Haryana and Punjab seeking the act’s repeal.

The Maharashtra government’s attempt to do the same, it appears, has floundered on procedural issues. Ganpatrao Deshmukh (Peasants and Workers Party) said the government had tried to move the resolution without giving the mandatory seven days’ notice. BJP’s Khadse only argued that the government was trying to postpone the debate on the resolution without allowing the opposition to debate the motion. He said the ULCRA is currently in force in only two Indian states.