Hundreds of farmers, landless labours, and dalits from Maharashtra converged at Delhi's Jantar Mantar Parliament street-crossing on Monday to protest a Ministry of Defence land-acquisition proposal.

The protestors converged in Delhi after completing a 1,400 km protest-march that started from Ashti in Beed district of Maharastra on February 8, 2003.

They are opposing the acquisition of what they claimed fertile agriculture land by the MoD for the purpose of an Armoured Corps Center and School at Ahmednagar.

The agitators, led by for former Congress legislator from Beed, Bhimrao Dhonde, met the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who assured them to raise the issue in the parliament once it resumes on April 7 after its three-week recess.

According to Dhonde the military headquarters at Ahmednager has already initiated the process of acquisition of fertile land from 75 villages to the tune of 630 sq km starting from Ashti Tehsil to Beed district, Karjat Tehsil to Ahmednager district and Ahmednagar Tehsil in the same district.

Dhonde said the land being taken over is fertile and the ancestral property of the 150,000 landholders, whose survival depended on it.

"There are four medium irrigation projects, seven storage tanks covered under Krishna Valley Development Corporation, 47 weirs, 33 minor irrigation tanks, more than 200 percolation tanks and 5,000 wells helping the farmers to cultivate the fertile land under irrigation," Dhonde said.

He also questioned the need to acquire fertile land when there is abundant barren land available.