congress: Par-Tapi-Narmada river link project in Gujarat shelved just for polls: Congress

The Gujarat Congress has alleged that the Centre’s decision to stall the controversial Par-Tapi-Narmada river link project was a ‘gimmick’. Party leaders on Wednesday vowed to continue the ongoing tribal agitation in the southern part of Gujarat till the Center scrapped the project and released a white paper on the project’s “probability of damage to tribal dwellings”. Would do it

The Centre, along with the BJP’s state government, is believed to have quickly backtracked on the ambitious project given the potential for damage to the tribal movement in the assembly elections due later this year. The Congress’s attempt to keep this issue alive is also attributed to this. The tribal movement against the project intensified after the state Congress joined in, and soon senior Union ministers engaged in hectic talks with their Gujarat counterparts before announcing a halt to the project.

At a media briefing in New Delhi on Wednesday, Gujarat’s Leader of Opposition Sukhram Rathwa, Congress MP Shaktisinh Gohil and a key activist of the movement, Anand Patel, MLA, said they would consider the government’s announcement of keeping the project a ‘jumla’. We do. Inspired by the assembly elections held at the end of the year. He argued that the Center would revive the project, as fuel price hike was resumed after it was stopped during the recent assembly elections. Agitator-turned-celebrity Congress leader Hardik Patel was supposed to attend the briefing along with party colleagues but did not turn up.

Originally published at Pen 18