By IANS
Tiruchirapally : Bharatiya Janashakti Party leader Uma Bharti has said she will lead a march from Rameswaram to Ayodhya demanding that the Ram Setu or Adam's Bridge in south India be protected and given heritage status.
After a visit to the temple town of Rameswaram to give the pro-Hindutva group's agitation a fresh lease of life, Bharti said her worry was only about the "faith of Hindus" and was not against the Sethusamudram canal project per se or development.
She was also "concerned" about the livelihood of thousands of fishermen in Indian as well as Sri Lanka's coasts who would be affected by the canal, she said.
The Rs.25 billion Sethusamudram Ship Canal Project will create a 90-km long and 300-metre wide channel, with a depth of about 11 metres, to reduce the ship travel distance between Cape Comorin and Chennai by 402 nautical miles and about 30 hours.
Political parties, fishing communities and environmental groups are protesting the cutting of the Adam's bridge reef for the canal.
The coral reef known as Adam's Bridge in Rameswaram separates the Gulf of Mannar from the Palk Bay. According to Hindu mythology, it is the bridge that Lord Rama built to rescue his wife Sita, who was kept imprisoned on the island of Sri Lanka by demon king Ravana.
Two connected channels are being created, one (6 km long and 300 m wide) across Adam's Bridge, the chain of islets and shallows linking India with Sri Lanka, southeast of the Pamban Island, and another through the shallows of Palk Bay, deepening the Palk Straits.
Bharti said "over 100,000 fishermen" would be unemployed because of the project. She said the government should come out with "an alternative source of employment for them… Development should not be at the cost of the country's heritage".
She said that 18 teams, comprising 11 party-volunteers each, would walk 100 km. They will thus cover 1,800 km, from Rameswaram to Ayodhya, the mythological birthplace of the Lord Rama.
The 'padyatra' (march) will begin in Rameswaram sometime later in July and be completed in a week, she said, adding that the exact date would be announced later.
A signature campaign to gather support for the preservation of the Ram Setu will take place at the same time.
Bharti said she wanted "a high-level committee" to go into the various aspects of the project, taking into consideration the "sentiments of Hindus" and the livelihood of fishermen. She promised to appeal to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani and former prime minister A.B. Vajpayee to help protect Adam's Bridge from the shipping project's plan.
The day before Bharti had said, "We will not allow the Rama Setu to be damaged. We will even sacrifice our lives to protect it."