BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi have strongly batted for the Polavaram dam project in Andhra Pradesh during their election meetings recently.
Modi accused that by delaying the project for long years, the UPA Government led by the Congress at the Centre has shown sheer apathy towards the people of AP and claimed that since he was with the people, they should no more feel alone and sidelined. He promised that once the BJP comes to power in Delhi, he will accord priority to the project.Rahul Gandhi also voiced similar concerns over the delay in execution of the dam, which, he said, would prove to be a great boon to the people of the region when it is completed as it would provide sufficient water for irrigation and drinking purposes. He announced that the Congress is always for the development of the backward region and the tribals and hence, it would carry out the project with utmost sincerity once elected to power.
While the two leaders were trying to woo the electorates in AP by their speeches, the Central Cabinet gave its nod to the constitution of the Polavaram Project Authority (PPA).As if stung by millions of scorpions, the BJD reacted very sharply to the statements of Modi and Gandhi and the Central Government’s move. It was School and Mass Education Minister Rabi Narayan Nanda who described both Modi and Gandhi as anti-Odisha and said both the Congress and BJP were little worried about the plight of thousands of people of Malkangiri whose villages, jungles and farm lands stood the chance of being submerged once the peoject was constructed.
BJD Youth wing president Sanjaya Das Burma also spewed venom against both the Congress and the BJP. He said the UPA-II had little respect for the sanctity of the federal structure of governance in India with respect to Odisha and was trying to give precedence to AP over Odisha by flouting all past agreements over the Polavaram project and the verdict of the Godavari water dispute tribunal.
He questioned if the interim Government at the Centre was capable enough to give verdict to the constitution of the PPA at a time when general elections were underway and the model code of conduct was in force.
The Polavaram project has been long in dispute due to its adverse environmental impact not only in the riparian States of Odisha and Chattishgarh but in AP itself. The tribal population nearby the project area is up in arms against the dam as it fears to lose a large land patch due to submergence of water.
Though at various stages, technical assessments of the dam have been made and it had been agreed upon to keep the spillway height of the dam up to maximum 150 feet to avoid large scale submergence of land mass, the AP Government has been coming up with new proposals off and on to raise the height to 180 feet and sometime to 182 feet, thus creating uproar and triggering apprehensions among the likely affected populace. However, so far the no complete technical assessment of the dam has been made. The PPA has been mandated to undertake the exercise.
The PPA as an autonomous body will run under the chairmanship of a Chief Executive Officer to be appointed by the Centre. Significantly, a separate PPA fund would be created for financing the project. It will gain the confidence of people in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh as also the riparian States such as Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
The apprehensions in Odisha are that should the dam height be raised to 180 feet, about 10 villages of Malkangiri district inhabited by tribals spread over about 2,100 acres of land will be under water.The BJD has vowed to renew its protest against the project, while Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has already dubbed the stand of Modi and Gandhi as negative so far as Odisha’s interests are concerned. The State Chief Secretary also stated that Odisha might move the Supreme Court again if its interests were affected due to the dam, but he said, that would be done only after the detailed report of the dam was obtained.
What is interesting here to note is the political slugfest being played over the dam. While the BJP and the Congress have adopted region-specific appeasement policy, the BJD has never failed to make its mark as the only party in intense love and attachment with Odisha, keeping an impression that it can never compromise with any move that is intended to affect Odisha’s interest adversely. At the same time, it has unfailingly unmasked the State BJP and Congress leaders for falling flat in protecting State’s interest and dancing to the tune of their national leaders.