Just when Kerala’s Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is trying to overcome the charges leveled against him over the solar power scam with his image of being the most pro-development CM the State has ever seen, six MlAs of his own party and the ruling UDF it leads have come out against his pet infrastructure project, the proposed Aranmula International Airport.
Four Congress MlAs and one each of the Muslim league and Socialist Janata (Democratic) have joined hands with Kerala’s frontline cultural leaders and the Opposition by signing a memorandum to be sent to the Prime Minister seeking scrapping of the airport project at ecologically sensitive Aranmula, a UN-recognised heritage village in Pathanamthitta district.
The memorandum, prepared by the anti-airport agitation council, requests the Prime Minister not to approve the airport project and to cancel all the clearances given to it. No development project could be implemented by destroying the heritage of an entire region and burying the water sources, the memorandum says.
The airport project being promoted by Chennai-based KGS Group, in which the Reliance group of Anil Ambani has a 15-per cent stake, has been mired in controversies right from the time it was conceived. The project would require filling up of 700 acres of paddy fields and wetlands that are vital to the ecology of the entire Aranmula region and to holy River Pampa.
The Congress MlAs who have signed in the memorandum are VD Satheesan, who was recently made an AICC secretary, TN Prathapan, Palode Ravi and CP Muhammad. The other UDF MlAs whose names are figuring as signatories are Ahmed Kabeer of the Muslim league and MV Sreyams Kumar of the Socialist Janata (Democratic).
The memorandum says that the aim of the KGS Aranmula International Airport ltd, the company looking after the operative part, was to do real estate business in the name of the airport. It has already been announced that the airport area will be a special economic zone with a luxury hotel, shopping mall, and multi-specialty hospital, etc.
Chandy had recently told the Kerala Assembly that the airport project would be implemented despite the protests against it and the Government had picked up a ten-percent share in it. It has now become clear that the Government had done this without majority support in the 140-seat Assembly in which the ruling UDF has only 73 members including the Speaker.
The memorandum pointed out that there was a huge conspiracy behind the project as it was given the go-ahead despite the fact that a detailed study by the legislative Assembly Committee on Environmental Affairs, headed by Congress MlA CP Muhammad, had concluded that it was highly detrimental to the environment.
However, Chief Minister Chandy and Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash continue to justify the decision to pick up the 10-per cent stake in the company saying that the airport would be a significant addition to the infrastructure of the region. An in-principle approval for the airport project was given by the former CPI(M)-led lDF Government in 2009.
Chandy has never had the total support of even his own party or the ruling front in the airport issue as the so-called Green Group of UDF and senior Congress leader VM Sudheeran have consistently demanded its revocation. The protests against the airport have been going on for in Aranmula the past four years under the leadership of Aranmula Heritage Village Action Council.
Reports had recently appeared in a section of the media that con woman Saritha S Nair, the main perpetrator of the solar power scam that has pushed Chandy into a deep crisis, had played a vital role in organising the necessary clearances for the project from Delhi. It is also said that this was the reason why she and Minister Adoor Prakash were in regular telephonic contact.