The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Sunday upped its ante against the Centre and announced to hold a massive public rally at Malkangiri on September 12, to protest against the latter’s forest clearance to Polavaram multi-purpose dam project.
“The BJD will organise a massive public at Malkangiri and September 12. People from Malkangiri and its adjoining Nowrangpur district, who are mostly going to be affected by the project, would congregate to register their protest against the Centre’s nod to Polavaram project,” the BJD strategist and Rajya Sabha member, Mr Pyarimohan Mohapatra, told reporters here.
Mr Mohapatra maintained that the project would submerge several tribal villages and vast stretches of forest land in Orissa’s Malkangiri and Nowrangpur district.
He informed that if the Centre did not reconsider its decision, similar protest exercises would be organised in other parts of the state. The `22,000-crore Polavaram project, which is being constructed by the Andhra Pradesh government over the Godavari river, has emerged as major political tool in the hands of the BJD to maintain its anti-UPA momentum.