Who is H K Thakar who moved a Public Interest Litigation in the Gujarat High Court challenging the allotment of land for Tata’s Nano car project? Many advocates practising in the High Court were seen asking each other on Wednesday about the political background of Thakar from the Rashtriya Kisan Dal (RKD).

The 64-year-old is an old socialist, and the general secretary of the state unit of the Samajwadi Party (SP). He is one of the closest persons to SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, as both of them have worked with socialist ideologue late Madhu Limaye.

Thakar came in contact with Limaye in 1965 when the latter came to address students in the Gujarat College here. With a zeal for social reform, Thakar holding Ganga jal in his hands along with several other students, took oath in the presence of Limaye that he would never do power politics and always do his best for the uplift of the poor and the needy. He had also sworn not to contest polls, but work as a watchdog of the people.

Forty-three years down the line, Thakar has kept the promises made before the veteran socialist. When his party fielded candidates from several constituencies in 2002 and 2007 assembly elections in the state, he himself did not contest. Incidentally, his party could not win a single seat.

After graduating as mechanical engineer in 1968, Thakar set up a factory in the Wadhavan industrial estate in his native district of Surendranagar. The factory is defunct now and he survives on income from agriculture. He owns a large tract of agriculture land in Halvad village. When the state government raised tariff for farm power in 2003, his RKD was the first to oppose it.

His colleague Manoj Patodia fought against it for two years and also staged a sit-in agitation in Gandhinagar. Thakar also presented a document with 110 grievances of farmers to the Agriculture department at that time, which was termed as kisan dastavej (farmers’ document). He also fought for reducing interest on farm loans from 14 per cent to 7 per cent by nationalised banks as also the cooperative banks in the state.

Talking about the Nano land controversy, he said he was not against the project, but against the grabbing of farmers’ land for agricultural purposes and then passing it off to an industrialist at throwaway prices. He says the land was taken on a lease of 99 years in 1902 by the then British government in India for agricultural purposes. The lease period expired in 2002.

“Honestly, it should have been returned to the descendants of the original owners of the land. But in its official records, the government is showing the land as its own,” he says. “This is illegal and cannot be accepted,” he adds, affirming that he would fight to get justice for poor farmers.

When pointed out that the government has charged the Tatas Rs1,100 per square metre, which is the prevailing market rate in the area and hence his charge of selling it at a very cheap rate did not hold water, he said the money should not to go to the government but to the real owners of the land.

“The government is not the owner. It has illegally grabbed the land and selling it to the country’s biggest corporate house in violation of all rules,” he said.

His state party president Surendra Yadav said the government could not acquire the land for private parties. Not only in Sanand, the government made a similar mistake in Jamnagar also where it acquired farmlands and sold it out to Reliance for setting up a petroleum refinery.