After a seven-day fast, she is frail and in dire need of medical assistance, but still doggedly refuses to let doctors come within sniffing distance.
NEW DELHI: Amongst the huge crowd of activists, protestors, onlookers and the media, Medha Patkar seems to have shrunk even more. After a seven-day fast, she is frail and in dire need of medical assistance, but still doggedly refuses to let doctors come within sniffing distance.
On Tuesday, Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Meira Kumar and MOS in the PMO Prithviraj Chauhan, assured Patkar that they would visit the affected families in the Sardar Sarovar Dam projectsite and the relief and rehabilitation sites. They said they would particularly take note of the areas where rehabilitation has not been done as mentioned in the memorandum submitted by Patkar.
In return Patkar did accept a glass of salted lemonade from Soz but clarified that she would continue with her fast. "The team visiting the affected areas in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat must make its report public immediately, latest by April 9. Till then, I and my colleagues shall continue our fast."
Tension was rife at the site and activists even went ahead to say that they could have chosen a violent path to get justice for the 35,000 affected families. "We have been protesting for over 18 days now, nobody even so much as looked at us. Now that Medhaji has gone on a hunger strike, all politicians are rushing to us," said Yogini, an activist.
There was a steady stream of visitors at the site on Tuesday with VP Singh and Arundhati Roy sending the shutterbugs to a frenzy. Meanwhile, the Politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) also issued a statement wherein they called upon the Central Government to reverse the highly irregular decision of the Narmada Control Authority to raise the height of the Dam in violation of the SC's decision.
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