Patkar was speaking at a press conference about the criticism she had received.
Digital Desk: Activist Medha Patkar
slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders for targeting the
Congress over her participation in the Bharat Jodo Yatra while campaigning in
Gujarat.
Patkar was speaking at a press conference about the criticism
she had received.
"Why are they misusing my name?" Patkar asked BJP
leaders, "why are they appealing to people via our name that they should
not vote for Cong or AAP... "Are they afraid that people will not vote for
them?"
During an election
campaign rally in Rajkot's Dhoraji last week, PM Modi slammed the Congress for
Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar's participation in Rahul Gandhi's
Bharat Jodo Yatra in Maharashtra, saying it was an indication of how much
damage the party intended to cause Gujarat in the coming days.
"Narmada was the
only source of drinking water for our people in Kutch and Saurashtra."
They went to court and started protests because they had been blocking those
waters for three decades. Gujarat was slandered... No one in the world,
including the World Bank, was willing to lend money to Gujarat.
"Yesterday, a
Congress leader went on a 'padyatra,' placing his arms on the shoulders of that
sister who led this agitation," PM Modi said at the rally.
Patkar, rattled by the
criticism, stated that "people in the Narmada Dam vicinity are still
suffering." I'm not interested in politics; all of this is done for vote
bank politics. Why do BJP leaders keep bringing up the Sardar Sarovar Dam
(SSD)? "Are they afraid of us
"This
demonstrates how Gujarat loots other states and benefits from it," Patkar
said.
"We used to fast
with the tribals from ghati who were affected," Patkar explained.
"The water from the dam hasn't reached many farms in the Kutch area
because smaller canals connecting the main canal were not built."
When asked about her
participation in the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Patkar stated that she was not the only
one who walked with Gandhi, but that she went because he invited her and many
others to participate in a dialogue.
Patkar rose to
prominence in the 1990s as part of the agitation against the Sardar Sarovar
Dam, which was being built to harness the river for irrigation and power
generation (NBA).
Patkar, as a member of
the NBA, was frequently at the forefront of protests calling for compensation
for displaced people as part of the SSD project, as well as the cancellation of
the project.
Patkar was also
chastised by a three-judge Supreme Court bench in 2011 for providing a false
affidavit in a case involving people affected by the Narmada project in Madhya
Pradesh.
The Supreme Court
ordered the continuation of the Sardar Sarovar Dam project in 2000.
The SSD is known as
"Gujarat's lifeline" because it irrigates 75 percent of the state's
drought-prone land.
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