THE CPI(ML) held a protest in Haldwani against Uttarakhand government’s plan for corporate land-loot on a massive scale and also protesting the institutional killing of environmental activist GD Agarawal on 15 October. The party sent memoranda to the Prime Minister through this protest.
The party demanded that the Central Government should immediately take measures to institute a Supreme Court monitored enquiry into the death of environmentalist GD Agarwal, issue a white paper on why the Ganga is not cleaned up despite crores of rupees being spent in the name of cleaning the Ganga, stop construction of big dams on all rivers in Uttarakhand including the Ganga. A lesson should be learnt from the Kedarnath disaster and construction of the Pancheshwar Dam should be stopped. Destructive projects like the All Weather Road should be stopped and roads should be constructed according to scientific techniques. Turning Uttarakhand into fodder for corporate loot in the name of Investors’ Summit is a ploy to further devastate this environmentally sensitive state.
The party pointed out that GD Agarwal had been on a long hunger strike for 111 days to save the Ganga which was completely unheeded by the Central Government. The PM himself had ignored letters by Agarwal to himself, instead the Uttarakhand government roughly and forcibly removed him from his hunger strike which led to his death. Why did the PM who had claimed during the 2014 polls that “Mother Ganga” had called him to save her, do nothing to heed Prof Agarwal’s pleas to save the Ganga?
