The
Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Kerala Karshaka Sanghom, and the Kerala
State Karshaka Thozhilali Union have decided not to call back their agitating
workers from the Aranmula puncha (paddy land) and to continue their struggle
against conversion of ecologically sensitive paddy land and wetland and against
the move to evict people in the name of a private airport project at the
disputed site.
As
many as 248 landless families of the KSKTU-Karshaka Sanghom workers are camping
in make-shift sheds at the site as part of the agitation. CPI(M) district
secretary K. Ananthagopan and Karshaka Sanghom district president Omalloor
Sankaran said there was no question of retreating from the ongoing land
struggle at Aranmula as it involved grave socio-environmental and legal issues.
Mr.
Sankaran and Mr. Ananthagopan told The
Hindu that
the agitation at Aranmula was against the “State-sponsored anti-environment,
anti-farming, and anti-people activities” in the guise of a private airport
project.
They
alleged that Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had taken personal interest in the
airport project, disregarding its far-reaching negative impact on this agrarian
belt, identified as the riparian floodplain areas of the Pampa. “Mr. Chandy had
attributed the UDF government’s decision to support the private airport project
to the in-principle clearance given by the previous LDF government, sidelining
the fact that the V.S. Achuthanandan government had given only a conditional
clearance for the project, strictly complying with the laws of the land.
Moreover, the setting up a private airport needs no clearance from the State
government, provided the company has the requisite land in its possession,” Mr.
Ananthagopan said. He alleged that the State government was yet to identify the
location for the airport in which it has decided to take 10 per cent equity.
The Chief Minister was yet to clarify whether the company possessed the land
for the project, and on the validity of the transaction of the land, allegedly
in the illegal possession of a private party to the company, he added.
Mr.
Sankaran alleged that the Chief Minister was trying to regularise the illegal
activities of the land mafia in Aranmula through the Cabinet decision to take
10 per cent equity in the airport project.
Collector’s
directive
Mr.
Sankaran said the Pathanamthitta Collector had already directed the tahsildar
and the village officers to cancel the mutation of 232 acres of land sold by
Abraham Kalamannil of the Kozhencherry-based Mount Zion Trust to the
Chennai-based KGS Group. Moreover, the Taluk Land Board has declared the land
as excess land and the Land Revenue Commissioner had recommended a Vigilance
probe into the land deals that had taken place in the name of the airport
project, he said.
In
this context, Mr. Chandy’s support to the airport project and the Cabinet
decision to take equity in it hinted at a bigger conspiracy that needed probe
by a credible agency, the CPI(M) leader said. Mr. Sankaran who is also the Bhoo
Samara Samiti district chairman said the samiti was for continuing the
agitation and would join hands with people’s action groups, irrespective of
political differences, to check the “anti-people and the anti-nature activities
of the government and the land mafia.
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