The inclusion of the Aranmula airport project in the Economic Survey of the Union government has landed the Sangh Parivar and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State unit in a fix.
The Sangh Parivar and the BJP had been in the forefront of the agitation against the project saying that it would necessitate wanton conversion of the Aranmula Puncha (paddy fields and wetlands) and cause destruction of the heritage village of Aranmula.
The Sangh Parivar had taken up a mass campaign against the project, highlighting the recommendation to reduce the height of the holy mast of the ancient Sree Parthasarathy temple. The main election plank of the BJP candidate, M.T. Ramesh, during the previous general elections to Lok Sabha was that his party, if elected to power, would cancel all clearances given by the Congress government to the project.
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Now, the BJP and the Sangh leaders who had been campaigning against the project were in trouble as the Centre had included the greenfield airport as a major project proposals in its Economic Survey.
Aranmula Heritage Village Action Council chief patron Kummanam Rajashekharan called upon Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to remove the references to the airport project in the survey. He said in a release issued here on Sunday that the references were unwarranted as the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had denied environmental clearance to the project. The court and the NGT had found blatant violation of laws in granting clearances to the project. The report was not an order or a decision but an assessment by some experts, he said.