Ranchi: The move to acquire land from ICAR's Ranchi-based Horticulture & Agro Forestry Research Programme (HARP) for a housing scheme for MPs and MLAs has been shelved. "We do not want to get into a land dispute,' Jharkhand Assembly Speaker Alamgir Alam said on Wednesday. It was The Indian Express that first reported on October 4, 2007, the move to acquire 88 acres of HARP land for bungalow plots. This had set off a chain reaction, with HARP's Principal Scientist Dr Shivendra Kumar threatening to move court and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar asking Chief Minister Madhu Koda to keep off from the land. Till recently, Koda and Alam had preferred to remain mum on the issue. But with clouds of uncertainty hovering over the UPA Government at the Centre and the state, they have been working overtime for land acquisition elsewhere. Three plots of government land measuring nearly 80 acres in the outskirts of Ranchi has been shortlisted, which will provide accommodation to over 200 politicians, including the state's 82 MLAs and 20 MPs. Ranchi Deputy Collector (Land Reforms) Kartik K Prabhat confirmed that the plots were clear of encroachment. "It is 100 per cent encroachment-free government land,' said Prabhat. On July 3, Alam presided over a meeting attended by a dozen government functionaries, apart from Koda and Prabhat, where it was resolved to expedite the latest land acquisition process. "The move is in the interest of every legislator and MP,' said C P Singh, principal opposition party BJP's chief whip. Incidentally, while several key Greenfield projects including those proposed by Naveen Jindal, L N Mittal and Ratan Tata have been stalled for years because of the Koda Government's minimal efforts to get them any land, there is no opposition to the new land acquisition for constructing bungalows for MLAs' and MPs'.