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dam-l LS: Medha will not be allowed to enter Ahmedabad: BJP
Source: The Times of India, Ahmedabad, May 27, 2000
Story ONE:
Medha will not be allowed to enter Ahmedabad: BJP
AHMEDABAD: Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary
Gordhanbhai Zadaphia on Friday said his party would not
allow Narmada Bachao Agitation (NBA) leader Medha
Patker and her associates to enter the city.
While speaking to newsmen at the BJP office, Zadaphia
said NBA had created several hurdles against the Narmada
project and the people of the state were eagerly awaiting
the flow of waters from the dam. The state government has
so far spent more than Rs 10,000 crores. The Gujarat
Chamber of Commerce and Industry had invited Patker
and Arundhati Roy to discuss the project in June.
When asked whether the party would pressurise the
administration to ban her entry into the state in view of the
popular feelings for the project, Zadaphia said it was up to
the government to decide. He said the BJP workers would
form a human chain to stop her from entering the city. "We
will not ask the GCCI to cancel the programme as it is an
autonomous body of trade and industry."
Strongly rebutting leader of Opposition Amarsinh
Chaudhary's charge that the popularity of the chief minister
was declining, Zadaphia said that he should not be oblivious
of the fact that Keshubhai had been re-elected after the
coup engineered by the Congress in 1995. "Chaudhary
should worry about AICC president Sonia Gandhi's
popularity that has registered a nose-dive."
While referring to Chaudhary's suggestion that Union rural
development minister Sunderlal Patwa should direct
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh keep the
height of the dam at 110 metre height, Zadaphia said the
minister has never come in the way of Gujarat, while Singh
has been opposing the project.
He also contested Chaudhary's contention that the BJP
would lose half of the municipal corporations and
municipalities if election were announced. He said, "We will
win more municipalities and panchayats."
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STORY TWO
Medha's organisation gets funds from abroad: Vyas
GANDHINAGAR: Narmada development minister Jay
Narayan Vyas and Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam
chairman Bhupendrasinh Chudasma on Friday warned
Narmadao Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar and
other activists to refrain from criticising the project,
particularly when the state government was fighting a grim
battle on water crisis due to the drought in more than 9,000
villages.
Vyas regretted that NBA, that has no roots in India and
was being assisted from foreign platforms, has no right
whatsoever to challenge the project that was being
implemented as per the recommendations of the Narmada
Water Dispute Tribunal.
Chudasma reiterated that Patker and the NBA was getting
huge financial assistance from abroad for continuing their
movement aimed at stalling the project. The NBA leaders
have been asked to withdraw their agitation and extend full
support to Gujarat in completing the project.
In a statement, Vyas said that it was time for Patkar and
other so-called environmentalists to shun negative campaign
for the project that was the lifeline for Gujarat. He asked
them to help in a constructive manner so that the project
that was constantly mired in legal tussles could be expedited
in the larger interest of the people of the state.
While denying the charge levelled by Patkar that the state
government was maligning the NBA, Vyas said it was
otherwise as she and her colleagues were blaming the
government for the unprecedented water crisis. This, he
said, despite it making the best possible efforts to provide
water to the farthest of villages.
Lashing out at statements issued by NBA leaders, Vyas
said it was really unfortunate that NBA and other
environmentalists were blaming the state government for the
situation. He charged that it was mainly due to obstacles
raised by NBA against the ambitious project that more than
9,000 villages were reeling under acute drought. "Thus it
was Patkar who created the drought," he said.
"Not a single NBA activist has even set up a small water
kiosk at the relief sites or in a scarcity-hit village in
Saurashtra," Vyas said, adding that the people of Gujarat
and other states have seen through their gameplan.
"They are exposed and it is no more possible for them to
hold the people of Gujarat to ransom."
Once the project was completed, the Narmada waters
would save Saurashtra and North Gujarat from frequent
droughts. Chudasma strongly contested the statement of
Patkar that the state government has failed to carry out
water conservation programmes. He said Patker should
have taken pains to go through the statistics on water
conservation projects in which Gujarat was almost on the
top in the country.