Wagholi, nearly 20 km from Pune, continued to be tense on Sunday, after Friday’s incident when local farmers stoned the official vehicle of Haveli tehsildar Sanjiv Deshmukh. He had gone there for a socio-economic survey ahead of the proposed land acquisition for a special economic zone (SEZ) by Videocon.
Pune had witnessed a violent revolt by farmers from Maan village in Mulshi taluka against acquisition of their land for the expansion of Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park at Hinjewadi in March 2006.
On Sunday, Shetkari Sanghtana, a farmers’ organisation, decided to mobilise locals against the state dictatorship against farmers. Farmers do not want to give an inch of their land either to the government or Videocon.

The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), the state’s nodal agency for industrial development, was involved in the acquisition process and a preliminary notification for acquisition of the land was issued six months ago.
According to official sources at the district collectorate, the SEZ involving electronic giant Videocon is to be set up on over 1,880 hectares (ha) of land covering Wagholi, Lonikand, Kesnand and Bakuri villages located on the eastern outskirts of Pune. Most are fairly urbanised settlements but vast tracts of irrigated patches along with rainfed agricultural and fallow land still exist.