Mockery of legal, deliberative processes: Sonia slams govt on Nicobar project

New Delhi: Terming the Great Nicobar infrastructure project a “planned misadventure”, Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Monday said it poses an existential danger to the island’s indigenous tribal communities and is being insensitively pushed through, making a “mockery of all legal and deliberative processes”.

The collective conscience cannot, and must not, stay silent when the very survival of the Shompen and Nicobarese tribes is at stake, Sonia Gandhi said in an article published in ‘The Hindu’.

“Our commitment to future generations cannot permit this large-scale destruction of a most unique ecosystem. We must raise our voice against this travesty of justice and this betrayal of our national values,” she said in her article titled ‘The making of an ecological disaster in the Nicobar’.

Her remarks come days after Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi wrote to Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram, expressing deep concern over the alleged violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) in the grant of clearances to the Great Nicobar Project, and urged the government to ensure adherence to the due process prescribed under the law.

Congress leader and former environment minister Jairam Ramesh has also been highlighting concerns over the Great Nicobar project, claiming that it is inimical to ecology and the rights of forest dwellers and tribals in the area.

In her article, Sonia Gandhi hit out at the Modi government and said there has been no shortage of “half-baked and ill-conceived policymaking” in the last 11 years.

“The latest in this series of planned misadventures is the Great Nicobar mega-infrastructure project. The totally misplaced Rs 72,000 crore expenditure poses an existential danger to the island’s indigenous tribal communities, threatens one of the world’s most unique flora and fauna ecosystems and is highly susceptible to natural disasters,” she said.

“Nevertheless, it is being insensitively pushed through, making a mockery of all legal and deliberative processes,” Sonia Gandhi said.