As protests continued in Kerala over the Centre’s move to implement the Kasturirangan committee report on Western Ghats conservation, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday offered to look into the concerns of the State, which has thousands of small and marginal farmers settled on the slopes of the mountain range.
No eviction
According to M.I. Shanawas, MP, Ms. Gandhi had promised to take up the State’s concern with the Union government and that farmers in the State would not be evicted from the land they hold.
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Mr. Shanawas called on Ms. Gandhi in New Delhi along with Bishop Mar Remigiose Inchananiyil of the Tharamassary diocese, patron of the resistance group spearheading the campaign in north Kerala, to convey the anxieties of the people in the affected areas of the State.
“The Congress president is seized of the seriousness of the matter. Ms. Gandhi has assured us that no farmer will be evicted from the land they hold,” Mr. Shanawas said in Delhi.