Rs 3,000 cr splurged on Statue of Unity, thousands of families displaced : CPI
Patna, Oct 30: The CPI on Tuesday flayed the Narendra Modi government for "splurging" nearly Rs 3,000 crore on building Sardar Patel's gigantic statue at a time when debt-ridden farmers are "being driven to suicide" and millions of people are defecating in the open for want of sanitation facilities.
The 182 m Statue of Unity, touted as the world's tallest, is slated to be unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat on Wednesday.
CPI national secretary Binoy Viswam claimed that 75,000 adivasi families living near the Sardar Sarovar dam had been rendered homeless to facilitate the construction of the mammoth structure.
"While unveiling the structure amid trademark fanfare, the prime minister would do well to take note of the fact that residents of 12 villages situated along the dam have decided not to cook food in their kitchen in protest against the government's high-handedness that was on display while executing the project", he alleged at a press conference here.
"While touting the statue as the tallest in the world he (the prime minister) must also explain the logic behind splurging Rs 2979 crore on a single project at a time when agrarian distress is driving farmers to suicide", the Rajya Sabha MP said.
The statue, he said, is an insult to Sardar Patel as he would have never agreed to the displacement of 75,000 adivasi families to facilitate the construction of a statue.
"The 'Statue of Unity' is testimony to the fact that Make in India is as much a sham as Swachh Bharat has been.
While crores of Indians are still defecating in the open due to lack of sanitation facilities, 99 per cent work on the statue was completed abroad.
"Modi and the RSS - which has been his alma mater - are the Indian heirs of Hitler and Goebbels for whom spreading falsehood is an ideology. We and all Left and secular parties are therefore committed to defeating the BJP in the next general elections", Viswam asserted.
A beginning to this end has already been made in Patna where all like-minded parties had gathered and spoken in one voice at a rally organized by CPI, he claimed.
State CPI secretary Satya Narayan Singh was also present at the press conference.
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Odisha: Normalcy returns to violence-hit Malkangiri; internet services fully restored
Malkangiri (PTI): Normalcy returned to Odisha’s Malkangiri district on Monday, nearly a week after around 200 villages were damaged in violent clashes in a village, with the district administration fully restoring internet services, a senior official said.
Additional District Magistrate Bedabar Pradhan said internet services, suspended across the district on December 8 to curb the spread of rumours and misinformation following the clashes, were restored after the situation improved.
The suspension had been extended in phases till 12 noon on Monday.
The administration also withdrew prohibitory orders imposed under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita within a 10-km radius of MV-26 village, where arson incidents were reported on December 7 and December 8.
Though the violence was confined to two villages, tension had gripped the entire district, as the incident took the form of a clash between local tribals and Bengali settlers following the recovery of a headless body of a woman on December 4, officials said.
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The violence broke out after residents of Rakhelguda village allegedly set ablaze several houses belonging to Bengali residents, forcing hundreds to flee. The headless body of Lake Podiami (51), a woman from the Koya tribe, was recovered from the banks of the Poteru river on December 4, while her head was found six days later at a location about 15 km away.
Officials said the district administration held several rounds of discussions with representatives of the tribal and Bengali communities, following which both sides agreed to maintain peace.
Relief and rehabilitation work has since been launched at MV-26 village, with preliminary assessment pegging property damage at around Rs 3.8 crore.
A two-member ministerial team headed by Deputy Chief Minister K V Singh Deo visited the affected village, interacted with officials and locals, and submitted a report to the chief minister.
So far, 18 people have been arrested in connection with the violence, the officials said, adding that despite the withdrawal of prohibitory orders and restoration of internet services, security forces, including BSF and CRPF personnel, continue to be deployed to prevent any untoward incident.
On Sunday, Nabarangpur MP Balabhadra Majhi visited MV-26 and neighbouring Rakhelguda villages, and held discussions with members of both communities as part of efforts to rebuild confidence and restore peace.
More than two lakh Bengali-speaking Bangladeshis were rehabilitated by the Centre in Malkangiri and Nabarangpur districts in 1968, and they currently reside in 124 villages of Malkangiri.
