By IANS
Lucknow : Janata Party chief and former union minister Subramanian Swamy said here Thursday that the Sethusamudram shipping canal project would only help the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its sympathisers, posing a security problem for India.
Addressing a press conference, Swamy said: “Apart from the mythological aspect, because of which it is being opposed by millions, the project would also pose a security threat to India.”
“Even Defence Minister A.K. Anthony had not been consulted on the issue when it was amply evident that it would provide unhindered access to the LTTE into our territorial waters,” he claimed.
Swamy said: “I have reason to believe that the only people to derive benefit from the project are members of the LTTE; therefore it does not surprise me that LTTE sympathisers like Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi are pushing the Sethusamudram project.”
Flaying the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) central government for continuing to align with parties like Karunanidhi’s DMK, Swamy remarked: “I fail to understand how Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi could turn a blind eye to the alliance with DMK as well as the Dravida Kazgham (DK) whose nexus with the LTTE is an open secret.”
Accusing Sonia Gandhi of getting easily pressurised by Karunanidhi, he asked, “How could she allow this when it is an open secret that DK activists were also among 26 key accused in the Rajiv Gandhi murder conspiracy?”
Criticising Karunanidhi’s statements that the project would promote economic development, Swamy said: “These so-called benefits were cooked up on the basis of faulty calculations.”
According to him, “A close study using the analysis carried out by Dr. Jacob John (published in Economic and Political Weekly) suggests that the entire economic cost benefit data drawn up in the Detailed Project Report prepared by the union shipping ministry was misleading.”
“The cost of the project is greatly underestimated and the projected revenue is grossly overestimated.”
He wondered, “How the union cabinet had unilaterally given its nod to the project when 15 high level committees set up between 1860 and now had disapproved of the plan on various grounds.”
Swamy said: “If the project is inevitable, then too the government should consider other alternatives – including one that could be achieved by digging through 15 km of mainland stretch between Pamban and Dhanushkodi, adjacent to Ram Sethu, thereby maintaining the status quo of the Sethu.”
Describing Ram Sethu as a “living miracle”, he urged the union government to approach Unesco to include it as the 28th World Heritage site.
The Sethusamudram project off the southern tip of Tamil Nadu is being protested by the Bharatiya Janata Party and others, who claim it will damage the Ram Sethu, believed to be the bridge referred to in the epic “Ramayana”.
Swamy had petitioned the apex court against demolition of the Ram Sethu (Adam’s Bridge) and to give it national monument heritage status. It has ordered a stay on the project.