BHUBANESWAR: Even after the resignation of Congress members and boycott by the BJP MLAs, the assembly committee on Polavaram has sought an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the issue.
This was announced here today by minister of state for food supply and consumer welfare and a member of the committee Sanjay Dasburma. He said that the committee has requested the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to fix an appointment with the Prime Minister between December 27 and January 18. Dasburma said that the committee will apprise the Prime Minister about the latest position on the Polavaram issue.
Besides, the committee will request the Prime Minister's intervention for conducting Palli Sabhas in tribal villages to be affected by the project. To a question on whether the opposition Congress and BJP members, who had resigned from the Committee, would be invited to the Committee in next meeting, he said Speaker Niranjan Pujari, chairman of the committee, will invite them to participate.
“Since the house committee is above any political programme, I hope that the opposition members, for the sake of safeguarding the larger interest of Odisha as well as the tribals, will attend the meeting”, he said. The committee will have another before meeting the Prime Minister to finalise the memorandum. While 6818 people, including 5916 tribals, will be displaced by the project, it will submerge 7656 hectares of land and 26 tribal villages. While all the five Congress members had resigned from the committee alleging politicisation of the issue by the BJD, the three BJP members had announced to boycott all proceedings of the committee in future.
A delegation of BJD MPs had also met the Prime Minister on December 17 to request his intervention to stop unilateral construction of the project by Andhra Pradesh government and withdraw the national project status given to it.