The anti-Jaitapur movement gained momentum on Monday when various organisations took out a protest march from Lower Parel. The march converged in Worli for a rally.
The anti-Jaitapur movement gained momentum on Monday when various organisations took out a protest march from Lower Parel. The march converged in Worli for a rally.
A number of NGOs, trade unions like the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF) and other organisations participated in the rally led by the Konkan Bachao Samiti.
Speakers at the rally unanimously asked the government to scrap the project and “spare the people of Jaitapur from the horrors of a nuclear disaster”.
Retired Supreme Court judge PB Sawant and former high court judge BG Kolse-Patil held a press conference and narrated stories of
police oppression in Jaitapur and
its surrounding areas.
Sawant and Kolse-Patil who have been pioneers of the cause called the police oppression government’s “arrogance of power” and vowed to deal with it with people’s power.
“If they are going to treat villagers with arrogance and blind use of power, then the day is not far when people will revolt against the government. We have been following a non-violent, Gandhian way of protest, which is our democratic right; no one can stop us from that. If the government machinery is going to threaten people, the people will not stop from taking law in their hands,” said Sawant.
Under the banner of Lokshasan Andolan, both the former judges registered their protest for denying them the entry in Ratnagiri district by the administration.
On the other hand, Left parties and the trade unions affiliated to them made their opposition to the project clear.
“Our party is not opposed to nuclear power. But in this case, the locals do not want the project at all. It will destroy their livelihood, and secondly, it is extremely costly. In the backdrop of the Japan earthquake, the environmental clearance given to the project has to be reversed,” said Ashok Dhawale, secretary, CPM, Maharashtra.
The Left parties will hold a demonstration and a protest march on April 26, the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
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