On July 29, Friday, Punjab CM and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Bhagwant Mann claimed that since May 1, 2022, his government in the state has taken possession of 9,053 acres of land which was illegally encroached upon by people across the state, including several influential people.
It will be probed how these encroachers had occupied the land. So far, 9053 acres of land have been freed from encroachers & handed over to the panchayat and forest department: Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann pic.twitter.com/5APUganmy1
— ANI (@ANI) July 30, 2022
The AAP leader further claimed that as part of the ongoing drive, the authorities on July 29 alone, freed 2,828 acres of illegally encroached land worth Rs 350 crore in Majri block of Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar district from 15 influential encroachers. The influential people included the sons of the newly elected MP from Sangrur Simranjit Singh Mann and former Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar of the Congress.
In an unprecedented action, CM @BhagwantMann personally supervised a government drive to take possession of 2828 acres of illegally encroached prime land worth ₹350 crore in Block Majri of the SAS Nagar from 15 influential encroachers including son of MP Simranjit Singh Mann. pic.twitter.com/5xAW3N2QkQ
— CMO Punjab (@CMOPb) July 29, 2022
The Punjab CM said the encroached land in Chotti Badi Naggal (Majri) village was prime land and had been illegally occupied by several influential officers and politicians for very long. Giving the break-up, Mann said that the illegal encroachers included Imaanjit Singh Mann, the son of Simranjit Singh Mann, who had illegally occupied 125 acres of land in the area. Similarly, Harmandeep Singh Dhaliwal, the son of Congress leader Kangar, had encroached on five acres of land while Sangrur MP’s daughter and son-in-law had also occupied 28 acres illegally.
Giving the details of other encroachers, the Chief Minister said that 1100 acres of land have been encroached by Fauja Singh, who runs an infrastructure company. He said that other encroachers include Akur Dhawan (103 acres), Jatinder Singh Dua and Pukhraj Singh Dua (40 acres), Prabhdeep Singh Sandhu, Gobind Singh Sandhu and Nanki Kaur (28 acres), Ripudaman Singh (25 acres), Navdeep Kaur (15 acres), Deepak Bansal (12 acres), KF Farms (11 acres), Tejvir Singh Dhillon (10 acres), Inderjit Singh Dhillon (8 acres), Deepinder Pal Chahal (8 acres), Sandeep Bansal (6 acres), Harmandeep Singh Dhaliwal (5 acres), Manjit Singh Dhanoa (5 acres) and Rita Sharma (4 acres).
Mann bragged that he was fulfilling his party’s poll promise, as they had vowed that all the influential illegal encroachers who have plundered the state wealth mercilessly will be brought to book.
AAP criticises BJP’s demolition drive against illegal encroachment in Delhi, supports the same in the State of Punjab
It is interesting to note that the Aam Aadmi Party’s vociferous support for such anti-encroachment drives in Punjab contrasts sharply with their opposition to the same being carried out by the BJP-led Municipal Corporation (MCD) in Delhi.
In fact, in May, OpIndia reported Aam Aadmi Party’s dual-faced behaviour over the demolition drive against illegal encroachment in the National Capital. In a tweet on April 29, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party had boasted about ‘stopping’ such a drive by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). AAP had shared a News18 video on Twitter wherein a shopkeeper could be heard thanking the party’s MLA for saving his ‘illegal shop’ from demolition.
He also informed that the illegal shops that were razed by the MCD were being rebuilt by their owners, after being bolstered by the support of the local AAP legislator.
While the BJP-ruled Municipal Corporation of Delhi has been trying to rid the city of illegal encroachments, AAP has been actively hindering its efforts. However, in Aam Aadmi Party-ruled Punjab, the same party is calling for the removal of illegal houses and structures.
