Thaindian News

Mumbai, April 19 (IANS) Even as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party expressed support to the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project, the Shiv Sena appeared to be politically isolated for its stringent opposition to the project Tuesday.

Leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra assembly, BJP’s Eknath Khadse asserted that his party was not against the project, while participating in a debate on the JNPP.

“However, if it is carried out against the wishes of the local populace, we shall oppose it,” Khadse said in the assembly.

Even the MNS group leader Bala Nandgaonkar expressed similar sentiments over the project - “We are not against development. However, development cannot be carried out with bullets,” he remarked.

The ruling Democratic Front took full advantage of the growing schism between the Shiv Sena and the other opposition parties in the assembly.

“Your elder brother (BJP) is supporting the project and the younger (MNS) one, too. In such a situation, how will the people remain with you,” Home Minister R.R. Patil asked the Shiv Sena.

Patil asserted that the Maharashtra government has made all efforts to involve the local people in the project on different occasions.

When Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan conducted an open house in Mumbai over the issue two months ago, the people of Jaitapur-Madhban-Sakhri Nate villages boycotted it and later he (Chavan) personally went to Jaitapur to give them a hearing, Patil pointed out.

Patil invited the Sena to mediate with the local villagers opposing JNPP in a bid to take it forward and implement the project.

“We (the government) are ready for talks, but the villagers should also be ready. You are aware of their problems… we request you to mediate,” Patil urged the Sena group leader Subhash Desai, a day after the party called a bandh to protest police firing in Sakhri-Nate village where an activist was killed in police firing.

Vowing that the state government would go ahead with implementing JNPP, Patil pointed out that it was a fully-funded central government project.

They would also handle the rehabilitation of the people in the region and if anything is required to be done, the state government would step in to do the needful, in the larger interests of the state, Patil said.