CPI leader D Raja has shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking for his intervention in ending what he termed as ?brutal repression? of the tribal agitation against the proposed Posco steel plant in Orissa.
While the state government continued with heavy police presence in the state, its erstwhile ally and now adversary, the CPI seemed determined to take the agitation further. Party secretary general A B Bardhan will leave for Kalinganagar (the proposed site of the Posco plant) on May 19 and a big rally is being planned on May 21.
The trouble at Posco, the biggest foreign project in India in the steel sector, is in sync with the developments at other sites. Land acquisition related agitation on Sunday, forced chairman and MD of Bhushan Steel to abandon the inaugural ceremony of the company?s Rs 12,000 crore steel plant in Jharkhand as protesting villagers blocked all approach roads. The Posco project to produce 12 million tonne steel annually has been mired in difficulties for the past four years.
Raja, in his letter has accused the Orissa government of playing fast and loose with the Forest Rights Act. Raja said the ministry of environment and forests had in contravention of the Forest Rights Act, granted clearance to the project, albeit conditionally. This despite the fact that three gram sabhas had rejected the project being implemented in Kalinganagar.
Sources in the environment ministry say that the clearance has been granted to the projects with the clear understanding that ?the rights of the tribal people will be settled as per the provisions of the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006 before implementation of the project.?
The main Opposition BJP, which had been for the last few years an ally of the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the state also rushed a team led by Rajya Sabha MP Balbir Punj to Kalinganagar. ?We will be preparing a report on the way tribal agitation has been brutally repressed by the state government,? said party general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan who was part of the team.
