By IANS,
New Delhi : The Left parties Saturday slammed Orissa’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government for using force against villagers protesting a project by South Korean steel major Posco in the state’s Jagatsinghpur district.
“The Left parties condemn the firing and the resort to force by the armed police against thousands of men and women who were resisting and blocking the predatory moves of Posco to take over large tracts of fertile land in Jagatsingpur-Paradeep area of Orissa,” the Left parties said in a statement here.
They also rejected the state government’s claim that some of the protesters threw bombs and demanded that “the state government stop the use of force against the agitators.”
“Canards are being spread by the government that some of the protesters threw bombs. This is a total falsehood,” said the Left statement signed by Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat, Communist Party of India’s (CPI) A.B. Bardhan, Revolutionary Socialist Party’s (RSP) Abani Roy and Forward Bloc’s Debabrata Biswas.
State CPI and CPI-M leaders were present on the spot when the firing took place, the Left leaders said. CPI MP Bibhu Prasad Tarai, who represents Jagatsinghpur, was taken into custody Friday night on his way to the protest site.
Posco, one of the world’s biggest steel makers, signed a deal with the Orissa government in June 2005 to set up the project near the port town of Paradip in Jagatsinghpur, some 100 km from here, by 2016. The project has, however, been delayed for over three years due to various reasons, including protests by local residents.
The Left parties said the people were also protesting against Posco’s move to have a captive port alongside the existing Paradeep port, which will have an adverse impact on Paradeep.
“Posco is also proposing to have captive iron ore mines instead of purchasing ore from the Orissa Mining Corporation. The proposal of Posco to draw water from the Mahanadi Barrage will seriously affect the irrigation system and also damage the ecological balance in the region,” the Left said, charging the central and state government with ignoring all these concerns.