KOLLAM: Abhay Sahu comes across as an affable person who could find an immediate connect with those around. This quality has helped him to take thousands of villagers in Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha into confidence and successfully launch the campaign against South Korea steel major Posco.Sahu, a member of the CPI national council, is in the city as a delegate to the party congress.Odisha it seems is still angry with Sahu and Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti for the state losing out on the Rs 50,000 crore project, arguably the largest FDI in the country.But it is wary of giving a firm commitment to the industries for reviving the project at least till the Lok Sabha and state elections due next year.
“Life has not been easy for me even after Posco pulled out. The state continues to lodge false cases against me and the other villagers,” said Sahu. According to him, some 1,400 people were arraigned in over 300 cases on trumped up cases. Sahu was arrested four times and was put behind bars for three years. He spent four years underground. Though the number of cases against him has gone down from 63 to 56, he is constantly under the watch of investigation agencies and there was a raid on his house last week.But all these did not weaken his resolve and he continues to intervene whenever there is flawed implementation of development ideas.
“We are not against development and industrialisation. But it should be inclusive and we cannot allow destruction in the name of development,” said Sahu. According to him, the people have shown the land could be better utilised for cultivating beetle vines and cashew. He is on a mission to help farmers to get back the land forcibly taken over by the government.“Farming activities in Dhinkia are back to normal. But the people in Nuagaon and Gadakujanga are yet to be allowed entry into their land.” he said.