CM takes U-turn, supports Gorakhpur N-plant

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Fatehabad, December 30

The BJP in Haryana as well as its Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar seem to have shifted their stand on the upcoming nuclear power plant at Gorakhpur in Fatehabad after the party came to power in the state.

The BJP, including Khattar, were against the project and had even supported the farmers’ opposition to the acquisition of their land.

During his visit to Gorakhpur village on July 11 before the Assembly poll, Khattar had promised to review the nuclear power project if his party was voted to power. However, he told mediapersons here today that the conditions had changed since then. Even while receiving memorandums against the project submitted by Paryavaran and Jeev Raksha Bishnoi Sabha, People for Animals and the Gorakhpur Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, Khattar did not give any assurance to these organisations on this issue.

State BJP chief Subhash Barala, who first as president of the Kisan Morcha of the BJP and then as the district president of the party participated in farmers’ dharnas against the Gorakhpur Haryana Anu Vidyut Pariyojana, was sitting with Khattar when the Chief Minister gave clear indications of a shift in the BJP stance on the issue.

Addressing a public meeting in Gorakhpur village on July 11, Khattar, who was then a member of the national executive committee of the party, had announced that his party did not favour the setting up of a nuclear power plant on fertile land of Gorakhpur and it would instead shift it to another site.

Khattar had also said that though a majority of the farmers had accepted compensation for their land, the BJP was worried about the wastage of fertile land and the scarcity of irrigation water the project would create for farmers in its vicinity. Interestingly, Barala, who was district president of the BJP at that time, was present with Khattar then .

However, Khattar took an entirely different stand today, saying that the conditions had changed with a majority of the farmers accepting compensation for their land.

In their memorandums to Khattar, the Paryavaran And Jeev Raksha Bishnoi Sabha, People for Animals and the Gorakhpur Kisan Sangharsh Samiti expressed the apprehension that with 320 cusecs of the 1500 cusecs of the Bhakra-Fatehabad branch water going for the project, farmers will be left with little to irrigate their fields.

These organisations have raised other concerns like thick population in the area and Gorakhpur’s proximity to the Pakistan border.