The Kerala Congress (M), a party mainly of high range-based settler farmers and third biggest constituent of Kerala’s Congress-led ruling UDF, has stepped up pressure on the State Government for the withdrawal or revision of the Central decision to implement the proposals of the K Kasturirangan committee for the protection of the Western Ghats.
KC(M) vice-chairman PC George, also the Government’s Chief Whip, on Wednesday told the media that he himself and the party’s two Ministers and MlAs would have no option but to abdicate their positions if the party could not make the Centre revise its November 13 office memo on implementing the panel recommendations.
“We, being leaders of a farmers’ party, will not be able to get out of our houses if we are unable to safeguard their interests. We just cannot turn a blind eye towards the worries of the farmers over the Kasturirangan report by which no farming activities will be possible in 123 villages in Kerala’s high ranges, declared as ecologically sensitive as per the proposals,” he said.
George also said that this had nothing to do with the party’s demand for one more seat to contest in the lok Sabha polls. “The Kerala Congress (M) deserves two or three seats, it is a fact. But our stand on the Kasturirangan committee proposals has nothing to do with it as this is a life-and-death question of about 23 lakh people,” he said.
At the same time, a
delegation of the Kerala Congress (M) led by party chairman KM Mani, also the State Finance Minister, called on Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Wednesday to demand efforts to force the Centre to cancel the office memo of the Union Environment and Forest Ministry on implementation of the Kasturirangan panel
proposals.
The delegation, which included Water Resources Minister and KC(M) working chairman PJ Joseph and its MlAs, told Chandy that changes should be brought to the list of the 123 high range villages that had been categorised as ecologically sensitive areas before the Election Commission issued the notification for the lok Sabha polls.
After the meeting, Mani told newsmen that the delegation had asked the Chief Minister to put pressure on the Centre to take away the anxieties of the farmers over the Kasturirangan committee report on Western Ghats and that his party was confident about the sincerity of the Chief Minister in the matter.
George said that Chandy had promised them that Congress Minister KC Joseph would take up the matter of the Kasturirangan report with Union Minister Veerappa Moily. The Chief Minister himself would talk to Moily directly if that was needed, he said.
Though there were indications that the Kerala Congress (M) delegation would bring up its demand for one more lok Sabha seat in the meeting with Chief Minister Chandy, the leaders said they did not discuss this matter. Affairs related to seat-sharing would be take up at the appropriate time, they said.
At the same time, the Kerala Government informed the Union Environment Ministry that it wanted reconstitution of the 123 Western Ghats villages listed as ecologically sensitive. The State Government’s demands were included in a letter KC Joseph handed over to Moily on Wednesday.
The letter said that areas with human population and farmlands should be taken out of this list of villages earmarked for protection in the Kasturirangan panel report. It also wanted hospitals, dairy farms, etc to be exempted from the red category structures that would be banned in the so-called ecologically sensitive areas.