As protests against the proposed high-speed rail project, K-Rail, intensified, authorities have decided to go slow and temporarily halt laying of survey stones across the state.
At least six districts in the state witnessed fierce resistance for more than a week after women, children and the aged blocked officials and removed survey stones. Affected people thwarted all attempts to lay stones despite heavy police presence and possibility of arrests. Opposition Congress and BJP workers also clashed with police at many places.
A senior official of the Kerala Rail Development Corporation, the nodal agency for the project, said stone-laying was temporarily halted to avoid provocation. He said the government did not give any directive in this regard.
But opposition leader V D Satheesan said it was a diversionary tactic and ruling CPI(M) was buying time till the party congress, slated in April first week in north Kerala’s Kannur. “The government can’t take the steam out by resorting to such tactics. All of a sudden the ruling party developed aversion towards agitations, dubbing them as extremist movements. We will continue our struggle till the project was shelved,” he said in Malappuram.
However CPI(M) leaders maintained that the ongoing strike was anti-people and it was staged-managed by people who are against development of the state. “What the state is witnessing is anti-people movement. A group of hooligans is behind it and the government will go ahead with the project,” said party leader A Vijayaraghavan in Delhi.
But the junior alliance partner, Communist Party of India (CPI), said the government should take affected people into confidence first. “We can’t say it is anti-people movement. We have to redress concerns of the affected people first,” said party joint secretary Prakash Babu. The CPI was unease with the big-budget project since it was conceived a couple of years ago.
After meeting with Prime Minister Modi on Thursday, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan was upbeat and said the PM was positive and that he expected a green signal soon. But the BJP said the CM was misleading people. “The CM is fooling people. Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnav told parliament on Thursday that financial viability of the project is in question and sanction cannot be accorded without getting a clear picture of technical and environmental issues,” said party state president K Surendran.
Opposition parties and a section of environmentalists have been opposing the ₹63,941-crore K-Rail project, which is expected to reduce travelling time from north to south of the state to four hours from present 12 hours, saying it was unscientific and impractical and pose huge financial burden on the state. But the ruling front insists that it will be a game-changer and attract enough investment and reduce carbon emission considerably. The state has announced that it will be carbon-neutral by 2050.
