Hearing unites opposition parties

By SNV Sudhir

Chintapalli (Vizag Agency), Oct 3: The public hearing on the environmental aspects of bauxite mining held here on Friday, proved too costly to the state government as it gave an opportunity to all the opposition parties and NGOs to come on to a single platform. Until now opposition parties were conducting their protest programmes individually. But immediately after coming out of the venue of the public hearing they all held a ‘Praja Court’ and vowed to stop the mining process collectively. They also passed two resolutions on the spot one demanding the state government to declare the just held public hearing null and void and to cancel the two MoUs signed by the state government with Jindals and Anrak. All the parties are eying the Vizag Agency areas as Araku will have one assembly and one parliamentary seat besides already existing Paderu assembly seat after the de limitation process. All the parties were trying to gain hold on the Agency areas and the bauxite mining issue came in handy for them.
CPM’s Bhadhrachalam MP Midiam Babu Rao, who is also the member of the parliament consultative committee on environment and forests, said that he would take up the issue of the way public hearing was held with the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). CPM district secretary Ch Narasinga Rao said that they would send their observations with the video clippings about the public hearing to the Supreme Court Enforcement Authority.
“Police created a sort of fear among the public about the hearing. Many of them did not attend it. And who all came to attend the public hearing unanimously opposed the mining and boycotted the meeting. Hereafter we all irrespective of the political party we belong work together to oppose mining,” said CPI district secretary, JV Satyanaryana Murthy. TD district unit president Bandaru Satyanrayana Murthy said that their party when they were in power dropped the idea of mining bauxite after the stiff opposition from the local tribals giving importance to their sentiments. He said that the present Congress government was not at all in a position to listen to the woes of the tribals and going ahead with the project. Srinivas, belonging to Samata, an NGO which was opposing the bauxite mining, said that the apart from the tribals throwed out of their homes mining would also have an adverse impact upon the surrounding environment and water resources. All party leaders later held a huge public meeting in the town.