Union minister for road, transport and highways Nitin Gadkari, the main speaker, arrived three hours late when the crowd had whittled away to a few hundred.
"I apologise for getting late. I am coming from another event," Gadkari said. He arrived at the venue, DDA ground in Dwarka in west Delhi, at 8pm and spoke for about 30 minutes "to allay the fears of farmers with respect to the Land Acquisition Bill".
"Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav acquired land at cheap rates in Noida and sold them at higher rates to private developers. The Congress government in Haryana did the same. And today they are opposing the amendments to the Land Acquisition Bill introduced by our government to generate more jobs and improve rural infrastructure," the minister said.
On Sunday, Congress will organise a farmer rally at Ramlila Maidan to protest the amendments to the Bill. Rahul Gandhi , who hasn't been seen around for nearly two months, is likely to lead it.
"The BJP rally was supposed to be a winner. The party BJP wanted to take farmers into confidence by explaining them the benefits of government decision. But poor planning by and alacrity of the senior party members may cost us heavily," said one of the organisers. He said they had managed to gather a good crowd for the rally but due to delay in Gadkari's arrival, many left.
The rally was attended by five of its MPs from Delhi-Manoj Tiwari, Pravesh Verma, Maheish Girri, Ramesh Bidhuri and Meenakshi Lekhi. Harsh Vardhan and Udit Raj did not attend it.
"The politicians, once voted to power, take people for granted,. They are right also," said Jagdish Tokas, one of the attendees. He left the venue after waiting for Gadkari the main speaker to arrive for nearly two hours.
Many BJP supporters said the laxity of senior members on a sensitive issue like this may cost them dearly in the Bihar elections.
"The minister and MP's present spoke for hours justifying the government's move to acquire farmers' land but they did not speak a word on the crop damage this year," said a farmer from Narela.
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