A week after the state government sanctioned a seed capital of Rs 200 crore to speed up land acquisition for the New Chakan Airport, Khed Member of Parliament Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil has sought Chief Minister Ashok Chavan’s intervention against acquisition of nearly 2,565 hectares, much of it farm land, for the project.

The Shiv Sena MP, in letter to the CM on Friday, said the entire process was being carried out without prior discussion with the farmers. “Eighty per cent of the 2,565 hectares is irrigated and the farmers are not willing to give up the land. As the seed capital has been sanctioned, we thought it was time to seek the Chief Minister’s intervention,” said Patil. In his letter, Patil has demanded that the government shift the project elsewhere.

His detractors, however, say that the Shiv Sena MP is angling for the newly formed Shirur constituency created after delimitation and comprising assembly constituencies of Junnar, Ambegaon, Khed, Alandi, Bhosari, Hadapsar and Shirur. Patil, campaigning in the area to stall the project, has mobilised about 100 farmers to reach out to the interiors to enlist the support of people against the project.

But things are still in a flux as far as as Shirur’s political future is concerned with NCP supremo Sharad Pawar reportedly eyeing it as the place to contest from, though he is believed to be preparing to seek an entry into Parliament through the Upper House. With the land acquisition for the airport likely to become a political issue, NCP leaders say the party will support the project. “NCP will take up the issue of housing the airport in Chakan,”said a senior NCP leader.

Though government officers have been assuring time and again that irrigated land would be kept out of the purview of acquisition, Patil said it was unlikely. “How can just some tracts of land be kept out and the remaining acquired for development of an airport...Just like anti-Dow Chemical campaign in the nearby Shinde village in Chakan, we will carry out the Airport hatao andolan,” Patil said.

Meanwhile, former Bombay High Court judge BG Kolse Patil, who led the anti-Dow agitation, said, “As members of the Lokshasan Andloan, we have already mobilised people in seven villages. We don’t want the airport in this area as it covers irrigated land.”

Sunil Mane, a farmer from the project-affected Chandoos village, who runs a tea shop in the area, said the villagers were not letting any officer enter the area. “We do not want any development that will displace us,” he said. Kanta Shinde, another project affected person, said like many others, she is also not willing to give up her land. She said, “Agriculture is our profession. What would we do without land?”