Prohibitory orders issued

GANDHINAGAR, Dec 1: With prohibitory orders issued today in the Narmada dam area and the decision to maintain tight security on the road ...

GANDHINAGAR, Dec 1: With prohibitory orders issued today in the Narmada dam area and the decision to maintain tight security on the road leading to the kar seva site, a showdown between the Narmada Jan Andolan and State Government appears imminent.

Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya told reporters in Gandhinagar on Wednesday that the Government had issued orders banning assembly of four or more persons at the Narmada dam site and would act constitutionally during the proposed kar seva on December 4.

Narmada Development Minister Jaynarayan Vyas said the NJA had not indicated details of their programme to the State Government. He said the Government had tried in vain to convince Sharad Joshi to take water from downstream of the dam and pour it into the canal if they wished to hold a symbolic programme in support of the SSP. Vyas indicated this would be safer instead of spraying water from the dam.

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Vyas came down heavily on Joshi and Congress leaders from the State, who have organised the programme, for organising the kar seva at a time when things were going right for the SSP. He asserted the kar seva would not help the cause of the Narmada dam, but was in fact fraught with political ambitions.

He lamented that the kar seva controversy had fractured public support to the SSP. However, he insisted pro-SSP groups were not split over the kar seva, “only Chunibhai Vaidya (Lok Samiti) favours the seva.” Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam chairman Bhupendrasinh Chudasama was unhappy that for the first time the SSP was being used for political gain, while all political parties and organisations had always been united over the dam issue.