Bengaluru: Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda has urged the Karnataka government to immediately withdraw the proposed Bidadi Township project, warning that the JD(S) will launch a farmers’ agitation, including a satyagraha in front of the Gandhi statue at Vidhana Soudha, if the project is not scrapped.
In a letter to Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, Deve Gowda expressed strong opposition to the project, under which the Greater Bengaluru Development Authority (GBDA) plans to acquire 7,481 acres of agricultural land in the Ramanagara and Harohalli regions to develop a suburban township at an estimated cost of ₹18,133 crore.
He argued that thousands of acres in the region had already been acquired for industrial purposes and questioned the need for further acquisition of fertile agricultural land.
According to Deve Gowda, the project would affect 10,580 farmers, with nearly 82% of them owning less than one acre of land, making them particularly vulnerable.
He also raised environmental concerns, stating that Bhairamangala Lake has already suffered from industrial pollution and that its restoration remains incomplete. Launching a large-scale township project near the lake, he said, would be detrimental to both the environment and public interest.
Recalling his decades-long association with farmers’ issues, Deve Gowda said he had spent over seven decades working for the welfare of cultivators. He warned that if the government failed to withdraw the project, he would stand with the affected farmers and participate in a peaceful satyagraha outside Vidhana Soudha in protest.
