Several Opposition parties and mass organisations of Orissa on Sunday condemned the police action against villagers opposing the Posco-India's steel project in Jagatsinghpur district. They also warned the Biju Janata Dal government against using police force on innocent people to acquire land for different companies.
Accusing Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of compromising people's interests in his desperate bid to acquire land for companies such as Posco-India and Tata Steel, the political leaders and anti-displacement activists urged the people to foil the “anti-people plans of the State government.”
Leaders of six parties — the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Forward Bloc, the Samajwadi Janata Party, the Jharkhand Muki Morcha, and the Rashtriya Janata Dal jointly announced to observe May 21 as ‘protest day' across the State.
CPI State secretary Dibakar Nayak — whose party is backing the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, the organisation leading the anti-Posco movement — appealed to other Opposition parties to extend their support to the protest day programmes that would include rallies, demonstrations and dharnas.
CPI leader Ramakrushna Panda informed that a public meeting would be held at Balitutha on May 19 to express solidarity with the villagers agitating against land acquisition for the Posco project. CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan and other leaders will address the meeting.
It was at Balitutha, the main entry point to Posco project site, that the police had fired rubber bullets and lathicharged and teargassed hundreds of agitators on Saturday, injuring about 100 men and women.
Convention
A number of political parties and mass organisations held a State-level convention in the city against what they termed the growing police atrocities against the tribal people opposing the Tata Steel project at Kalinganagar and the non-tribal villagers opposing the Posco project in Jagatsinghpur.
The organisers of the convention included the Communist Party of India (ML), the Communist Party of India (M-L) New Democracy, the Students Unity Centre of India, the Samajwadi Jan Parishad and the Lok Shakti Abhiyan. Some leaders of Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti and many concerned citizens and politicians also attended the meeting.
The meeting decided to observe May 20 as ‘protest day' across the State. Hundreds of people who attended the meeting took out a silent march to condemn the police action at Kalinganagar and Balitutha.
Meanwhile, tension continued to prevail in the Posco project area and the police is on guard at Balitutha.
Correction
It's the Samajwadi Party, and not the Samajwadi Janata Party as given in the third paragraph of the above report.
