Accusing the Central and State Governments of showing undue favour to Posco, four political parties, the CPI(Ml), CPI(Ml) liberation, SUCI (Communist) and CPIMl-ND on Friday thrashed out modalities at a mass convention here for the scheduled observance of State-wide Black Day on June 22.
“Since the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the State Government and the Posco management was signed on June 22, 2005 and it completes eight years, we will observe the day as a Black Day across the State,” said CPI(Ml) liberation leader Judhisthir Mohapatra.
CPIMl-ND leader Bhal Chandra said, “At any cost, Posco should not be allowed to set up its project in Odisha. The project will solve no purpose; it will only bring sorrow as it will affect lakhs of farmers and consume our river water.”
The leaders demanded immediate scrapping of the Posco project and slammed the State Government for its “arbitrary” and “undemocratic” attempt to suppress the anti-Posco movement.
They also demanded immediate release of Posco Pratirodh Snagram Samiti president Abhay Sahoo from jail, besides urging the Government to withdraw police forces from the villages at the project site.