PRESS RELEASE

Modiji will you answer these ?

modimask

 

Against the false claims and campaigns, you owe this to the Narmada valley

 

While the election campaign is heated up in Madhya Pradesh and promises are showered upon the voters, Mr. Narendra Modi is to visit the Narmada valley once again, this time right at the heart of the Narmada movement, raising questions over injustice and illegalities infesting the Sardar Sarovar Project. It is known to everyone that lakhs of people; adivasis, farmers, fish workers, and others in Badwani, Dhar, Khargone and Alirajpur are not just voters, but sufferers of the Dam which Modi himself and his government is pushing to its completion,, without any concern for the utter violation of law and justice. It remains to be seen and watched as to what statements he makes at Badwani tomorrow and what questions he answers!!

 

The controversial statement Mr. Modi made in his populous rally in Bhopal last month is obviously challengeable. He claimed that Madhya Pradesh is to get 800 MW of free power from Sardar Sarovar, which is getting ‘lost’, due to non-completion of the Dam  to its final height! This being an utterly false statement that was made by the ‘aspiring-PM’, and was repeated in his press conference at Bhopal, he may not hesitate to repeat this lie during his public meeting at Badwani tomorrow. Voters from a few hundred villagers and densely populated region of Nimad will surely judge him on this and expect him to answer the following questions:

 

1.      Does Mr. Modi know that Sardar Sarovar is NOT Gujarat’s project alone, but is an inter-state project ?

2.      Is Mr. Modi not aware of the fact that Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra have to meet 57% and 27% of the Project’s capital cost on power generation and are not to get any power ‘free’ or by charity?

3.      Is Mr. Modi not aware that Madhya Pradesh has already invested Rs. 2065 crores out of about Rs. 5,000 crores that is, at present, the share of M.P. (capital cost for power) and raised a dispute over Rs. 1,500 crores, as the state is not agreeing to Gujarat’s pressure to pay interest on the borrowing amount?

4.      What happened to his promise (from Anjad in 2005) of lighting up the whole of M.P, if the dam is permitted to be raised by 9 mts. The dam height was raised, but there has been no real diwali for the farmers of the valley since then.

5.      Does he know that Madhya Pradesh – not the CM or the government- but the farmers – adivasis, Mankars, others farmers, fish workers (water melon cultivators) potters etc. are losing 20,800 + hecatres of land, including prime agricultural and horticultural land and forests ?

6.      Does he know and realize the huge impact of impoverishment, never compensatable on the Nimad region, with agricultural prosperity, to be caused by such massive submergence?

7.      Can he assert from the dais in Badwani that rehabilitation is complete, in full compliance with the law, including the Narmada Tribunal Award, state rehabilitation policy and judgemnts of the Supreme Court?

8.      Can he prove that all affected farmers have obtained not just paper pattas, but actual possession of alternative cultivable and irrigable land as due legal entitlement, when thousands are still deprived of the same?

9.      Does Mr. Modi know that thousands of adivasis in the hilly region of M.P., as well as in Maharashtra and Gujarat itself, whose lands have been submerged since 1994 (and since 2000 even in some plain villages) but not yet rehabilitated, have been facing illegal losses, annually ?

10. If he is only briefed properly by the authorities and his own party, who have not even cared to visit the affected villages after the devastation, how can he know the destruction of thousands and more houses, thousands of acres of farm lands, with standing crop, due to dam-induced floods, not natural.

11. Does Mr. Modi have any sensitivity towards these and lakhs of families who have a sword of brutal eviction and submergence looming large over their lives ? Does he believe in the false figure of ‘0’ balance families to be rehabilitated, while 2.5 lakh people live in the submergence zone as on date? Does not Mr. Modi, who went all the way upto Uttarakhand, have any sensitivity for these lakhs of people, in his adjacent state?

12. What does he know about the use and misuse of Rs. 1900 crores rehabilitation funds for M.P. and the massive corruption with upto 2000+ fake registries, CAG Reports on corruption in the construction works at resettlement sites, leading to dismissal of 27 officials at Badwani ?

13. Neither Shivraj Singh nor Modi utter a word about corruption in Narmada rehabilitation, canal construction and compensation disbursement?   Why? Can he and will he (Modi) still facilitate Shivraj for the ‘good job’ in rehabilitation?

14. Mr. Modi takes pride in spending Rs. 2,500 crores on the statue of farmers leader Sardar Patel, which is more than the amount for rehabilitation of 245 villages and one township affected by Sardar Sarovar ? Is such tourism just and justifiable?

15. How will Mr. Modi justify the imposed sacrifice on the prosperous region of Nimad, taking over 150 kms of Narmada and yet not give Kutch and Saurashtra their due, compelling them to go to the Supreme Court and return empty handed !

16. How and why is Modi de-notifying 4 lakh hecatres of the Sardar Sarovar command area land for corporates? And how can he explain the huge cost escalation of Sardar Sarovar, which has changed the cost-benefit ratio ?

17. Even after a cost of 70,000 crores and Rs. 5700+ crores received from the Govt. of India, for canal construction, why has Mr. Modi’s Govt. not completed the canal work Gujarat beyond 30%and how can he justify filling up the reservoir further and drowning dozens of villages, when existing waters are not being used?

18. Mr. Modi must certainly be aware of the huge illegal sand mining in the Sardar Sarovar affected villages, destroying the shelf life of the reservoir itself? Why is he silent on this?

 

With all this and much more, when Modiji is insisting in the dam height to be raised, will he and the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh take the responsibility for the fate and future of 2.5 lakh people by drowning houses of 45,000 houses and families, temples and mosques, schools and dispensaries, shops and panchayats, and millions of trees, proving all compliance reports to be utterly false.Please, Mr. Modi we would like to hear your candid answers to each of these queries, as we are not to stop you from your speech, not are to do policing, as you do against us, inflict violence against adivasis to activists. Please do not run away from his reality to a dreamy world of empty political promises.

 

Saavabehan                 Devram Kanera                      Kailash Awasya          Medha Patkar

Madubhai                    Bhagiram                                Vidyabai                     Kailash Harla

Iqbalbhai                     Hiradaram                              Mustakim Chacha

 

 

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