An all-party meeting will be held on Monday evening to find a way to end the local people’s agitation at Mukkom in Kerala’s Kozhikode district against a gas pipeline project of Gas Authority of India ltd (GAIl).
However, it may not lead to a positive outcome as the State Government and GAIl are sticking to their positions and the ruling CPI(M) and the Congress-led Opposition UDF are waging what is being called a war of hypocrisies, say observers.
Despite its earlier stand that the collective representing the real stakeholders, the agitation council, need not attend the meeting, the Kozhikode district collector, convener of the meeting, late Sunday afternoon extended invitation to two of its representatives could take part in it but observers said the talks might still turn out to be a futile exercise.
Another hurdle to finding a solution to the issue is the refusal by GAIl as well as the Government to suspend the pipe-laying works at Mukkom till the meeting is over. “Why can’t the company suspend the work just for one dayIJ” asked a leader of the agitation council. The meeting is being held as the UDF is preparing to take over the leadership of the stir.
People of certain villages in the Mukkom area have been agitating against the gas pipeline project for the past one month raising the issue of alleged lack of transparency in the land acquisition procedures, confusion over the compensation package and concerns about the safety of the gas pipeline that would run through an area with high density of population.
The Congress and UDF, which had projected the Rs 3,700-crore Kochi-Koottanad-Mangalore natural gas pipeline project as one of the biggest prestige development programmes of the State when in power, have threatened to take over the leadership of the agitation if Monday’s discussions fail to produce a positive result.
Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday made an unambiguous statement on his Government’s determination to ensure implementation of development projects at any cost. was not ready to honour the protestors’ demand. “This Government has taken a decision that the programmes planned for the State’s development would not be suspended, frozen or abandoned due to the pressures from anti-development propagandists.”
Pinarayi, a senior Politbureau member of the CPI(M), and his Government have taken this pro-GAIl position in total forgetfulness of the fact that his own party had been leading the agitation the land acquisition procedures for the pipeline project in Mukkom when it was in the Opposition between 2011 and 2016. However, the agitation council rejected the charge.
“A hypocritical war is being fought between the CPI(M) and UDF. The Congress and UDF are opposing the project only because they are in the Opposition. The CPI(M) has become a prophet of development only because they are in power despite the stiff objections it had raised to the project when it was in Opposition,” said Ibrahim Sulaiman, a Mukkom resident.
The Kozhikode district secretariat of the CPI(M) — in total agreement with the Government — had issued a statement the other day by describing the agitation as one perpetrated by “Islamic extremists” like the Popular Font of India, its political arm SDPI and Welfare Party of India of the Jama’t-e-Islami.
This statement came after the agitation slipped into violence last week with protestors clashing with the police and the latter responding with excessive force by breaking in to houses, dragging away innocents and attacking even women and children apart from trying to quell the protest on the streets with lathi-charges, tear gas and stun grenades.
Communists including Kanam Rajendran, State secretary of the CPI, major ally of the CPI(M) in the lDF, and nonagenarian Marxist and former chief minister VS Achuthanandan came out with harsh criticisms against the Government’s eagerness to label people’s stirs as extremist activity as this was not the first time an lDF regime and the CPI(M) had done this.
Amidst all this, GAIl is continuing to claim that the land acquisition process is entirely transparent, all landowners have been given prior notices and that the pipeline will be absolutely safe. The protestors are rejecting all these claims as hollow. The Government has put full trust in GAIl’s claims and is allegedly unwilling to listen to the protestors.