campaign led by both HPCA and the state's BJP government is motivated by vested interests with the government acting as a facilitator for HPCAm CPI (M) said.
The CPI(M) in Himachal Pradesh on Monday alleged the state government's "insidious" campaign for possession of Annandale ground in Shimla was motivated by vested interests and has a "very strong nexus with land mafia".
In a statement issued in Shimla, the state unit of CPI (M) charged the "campaign led by both HPCA and the state's BJP government is motivated by vested interests with the government acting as a facilitator for Himachal Pradesh Cricket association (HPCA)".
"The insidious campaign has a very strong nexus with land mafia which is bent upon changing the nature of the ground and the past history in Shimla town is a pointer towards this nexus in which the government has acted in the interest of real estate mafia and not for the state or the people", the Marxist party added.
Citing cases of DLF project under construction in Kanlog and take over of the Himlayan International School at Charrabra where the real estate interests allegedly superseded the law of the land, the party said "even in the case of Annandale, the story was no different".
It said first the campaign was led by the HPCA which led a signature campaign with a foremost demand of converting this ground into a cricket stadium but after a strong parallel campaign led by CPI(M)'s frontal outfit DYFI they changed formed a wider umbrella and also changed their demand from a cricket stadium to a multipurpose one.
"But it was just a guise to grab the ground for their ulterior motives and DYFI openly alleged that the HPCA campaign was backed by some of the land mafia who have already purchased more than 25 bighas of land in areas surrounding the Annandale ground and the buyers happened to be leaders of ruling BJP", it alleged.
CPI(M) has demanded that in no case the ground should be handed over to the HPCA as this was the only green meadow left in the town and the nature of the land should not be changed.
The ground should be made available to the people of the town as in the past for various kinds of sports activities like cricket, hockey, football etc.
Meanwhile, an umbrella body of 14 organisations "Annandale for Citizens" today organized a protest march at Annandale to counter the claims of the army that the ground was of national strategic importance.
"We want to bring to the notice of the people of state that why these mock drills and mobilization of machinery have started after the campaign was launched to get the ground back from the army authorities and want to ask a pertinent question that what activities of national importance have been carried out during past 54 years during the 1962, 1965, 1971 and 1998 wars", the outfit said.
If national security was the reason for holding on to the ground, it can be used for mobilization and making a base and other sports and activities can coexist, President of "Annandale for Citizens" Ashwani Garg said and added "we don’t want any compromise on national security and assure all help in times of emergency or calamity but the ground "can’t be a fiefdom of elite officers at the cost of our citizens and future generations".
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