The
politics is a murky mire. No sooner, the ministers and the bureaucrats relinquish
the cozy chair of power, they start finding faults with most of the people,
which even includes their political masters to whom they were very faithful earlier. This grotesque mud slinging affair of
political people is nothing new and media is also preoccupied with these types of
riff-raff information. One of the latest
entrants is Jayanthi Natarajan, the then environment minister of the UPA
government, who vociferously snarled at Rahul Gandhi’s obtrusive interference
of environment ministry's decision and she went on saying that all her
decisions were taken under the influence of Rahul Gandhi when she was ensconced
in that position. Promptly enough, Gandhi regaled the accusation only to counter
accuse her for switching off loyalty
from Congress to the BJP. Gandhi also
said that he was only trying to protect the interest of tribal forest dwellers
when Vedanta Aluminium was keen to implement a project in Odisha. The buzzing
sound of Gandhi’s criticism of Natarajan was also supported by former Congress
MP of the region just to show a veneration for one of the most powerful persons
of the Congress. But the incident as expressed by Natarajan even is getting
classified as a drama, is not incorrect, but the purpose is to induce her self
importance. The fallout of the project
was because everything was not to the tune of desireness of UPA – II. As per
the report, the said company sought to implement the mining activities in
Odisha’s Kalahandi district for bauxite with an idea to use the mining
materials to produce aluminum in a greenfield project in the vicinity with the
lobbies of highly influential people in nexus with certain politicians, local ministers
and bureaucrats. But the project did not see the light, causing a colossal loss
for Vedanta for 3000 crores. Needless to say, this mind boggling loss is
ultimately for various financial institutions and indirectly of the tax payers.
The national advisory council & some NGOs who were the messiahs of the
tribal dwellers settled in those areas took this as their victory because had the project been approved, it would have
created a turmoil on the environment & causing the local poor people to
become destitute.
Rahul
Gandhi is giving an ominous impression that this project would have destroyed the
cultural sanctity & religious fervor of the local people. In order to
protect the interests of a few, he not only caused the blockage of an important
money spinning project, but also
depriving the employment opportunities of many unemployed people. Now Natarajan
blames that she was forced to carry out the order under impulsion. If that is
the case, what is the need to glower at
Rahul Gandhi now. What purpose will it serve?
Further, by taking this political decision to save the local, what
benefit the congress got? The people of Kalahandi voted them out in the
election of 2014. The then sitting congress
MP was trounced by BJD. In fact, Modi’s image and BJP’s wave were not at all
responsible for the debacle of Mr. Das. The BJP could manage to highlight the
pitfalls of congress in various election rallies during that time for not
initiating this lucrative aluminum
project, which ultimately causes the poor sector of Kalahandi to become poorer.
But despite their all out efforts, they were not able to win this seat.
The
cultural & the religious rights, which were surfaced not to displease the
local people, were simply bunkum. In many other parts of India, these types of
issues often got cropped up & then settled amicably, but not by stalling the
project. As reported, the UPA II government faced various obstacles related to
environmental clearances & land acquisition and not able to manage the consent of the local community so as to
start this project. But these flashes have no iota of truth because
the then government was not that interested to plunge into various clearances
related to this project, as the case itself was a bit politically sensitive.
Despite
Natarajan’s public aggravation on Gandhi, this is fact, that she and her
predecessor Jairam Ramesh were unnecessarily using the “Protection of Green
environment” as a tool to distract the entrepreneurship mechanism of certain industrialists including this
particular one to start various mega projects. It was quite common in the UPA
years that this project, like many others was getting a step-mother treatment
on the pretext that certain business houses were not falling in line with UPA
governments dictum.
To
block this sort of project instead of starting the same for the upliftment of
common causes of people, the then environment ministry supported by their
lawyers proposed a law putting a provision to get the concurrence of the local
community for land acquisition. What a sarcastic castigation was shown by this
UPA II government? This provision in the proposal was also accepted by a
supreme court Judge. In theory, this provision of the proposal is well
acclaimed, but in practice, what does it mean? How far the local communities
have any say when any mega project of this magnitude is situated in their
locality?
Today,
Natarajan is howling, scowling and glowering. Why? She understands very well
that congress has a bleak future & she may not be able to be in the
limelight. But why to be grumpy. By accusing the past political deeds, blaming
the people sitting at the helm of the affairs, and telling the people that I have not done anything wrong, I was forced
to obey only, if she wants to prove that she was the victim in the hand of her
political superior, then why cry at this juncture of time. I do not think anybody
from her party will buy her argument except either to scream or simper. Her this stance is almost like
a gimmick to explore any opportunity probably which is being offered to her by
other parties as a reward of her outburst. If that is so, what is the harm to grab the same?
So, the politics and most of the politicians
are ruthless; they first work for themselves and if their coffers both mental and
social are fulfilled, then only they work to ensure the dying coffers of the country is getting filled up hopefully.
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