By IANS,
Mumbai : A day after the Shiv Sena attempted to gag eminent nuclear scientist Anil Kakodkar, the Congress hit back by demanding a probe into the funding pattern of the Sena and the NGOs spearheading the anti-nuclear protests in Maharashtra.
The demand came in a letter to Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office V. Narayanasamy from state Congress spokesman Sachin Sawant.
In his letter, Sawant equated the ongoing protests by the Sena and several NGOs against the 9,900 MW Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project, slated to be the biggest of its kind in the world, to the agitation against the Kudankulum Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu led by Peoples’ Movement Against Nuclear Energy headed by S.P. Udayakumar.
“The political parties like Shiv Sena have gone to the extent of threatening scientists like Anil Kakodkar who is in favour of the nuclear project,” Sawant said, and stressed that the “new threat” needs to be taken very seriously.
“I request you to kindly have a similar probe on the motives and funding patterns and all the NGOs and all other political organisations, including Shiv Sena, associated with the protests against JNPP,” Sawant demanded.
Narayanasamy last week said that the PMANE in Tamil Nadu was receiving foreign funding.
Meanwhile, Vaishali Patil, one of the prominent activists in the anti-JNPP stir, has said that the NGOs have taken serious objections to Narayanasamy’s statements and plan to challenge these in an appropriate forum.