Team Herald
PANJIM: Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) on Friday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his immediate intervention to ensure that the permissions granted by Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) to Karnataka’s Kalsa-Banduri project over River Mhadei are withdrawn till the matter is decided by the Supreme Court.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, GPCC President Girish Chodankar also demanded that Union Minister Prakash Javdekar be sacked from the portfolio for acting against the constitution by compromising the interest of the MoEF&CC Ministry for political gains.
“We urge that the Prime Minister of India should take immediate cognizance of the short-term and long-term ecological implications of Mhadei water diversion issue, which is already engaging the global attention in favour of extremely vulnerable State of Goa and intervene by giving directions to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to withdraw all the letters /permissions given to Karnataka and maintain complete status quo till the matter is decided by the Supreme Court,” Chodankar said.
Stating that Javdekar has no moral right to continue as the MoEF&CC Minister, Chodankar demanded that the PM should sack him from the Union Cabinet or that at least his MoEF&CC portfolio should be removed.
Detailing out the entire timeline of the development that took place from October 17, when the consent letter was issued to Karnataka, Chodankar said that it is evident and clear that the Minister has acted in an unconstitutional, discriminatory and biased manner to support a bigger State like Karnataka and has completely ignored the genuine demand of a smaller and extremely eco-fragile and water-stressed State like Goa.
“It is also evident that the act of Javdekar was to favour the State of Karnataka to woo the voters during the recently held Assembly by-polls,” he said.
Chodankar charged the Union Minister of committing “Contempt of Court” by issuing letters granting permission to the Kalsa-Bhanduri project of Karnataka when the matter is sub- judice.
In the very beginning, Chodankar recalled that “the former PM (late) Atal Bihari Vajpayee had categorically assured the then Chief Minister of Goa and your own party leader (late) Manohar Parrikar in 2001, that Karnataka would not be permitted to move ahead on the Kalsa-Banduri project. The former PM did this by keeping the letter given under the false pretext of diversion of Mhadei water for drinking water purpose in abeyance.”
