The Congress took a fresh guard on the Mhadei issue with newly-appointed Congress desk in-charge Manickam Tagore launching the Haath Jodo Abhiyan in Goa on Sunday. The leader called for a sustained battle against water diversion and once again harped on the need for Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to condemn the controversial statement made by Union Home Minister Amit Shah at Hubballi recently.
While blowing the bugle for the Lok Sabha campaign, Tagore assured to take up the issue "very seriously" and fight it on the streets of Goa and at the highest level in Parliament. While the new Congress appointee sought to make his point, once again, the political undertones of the address stood out more than the resolve to fight the issue. The point here is not about Sawant condemning Shah, or cabinet ministers distancing from Shah's speech, because, ultimately, Mhadei cannot be won through such pointless political cross-fire.
On Friday, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav stated that his ministry will take decisions only based on expert advice and claimed that he is still studying the water diversion issue while steering away from the controversy. However, Yadav was left red-faced when the Opposition leader and Cuncolim MLA Yuri Alemao raised a pertinent query on how the Kalasa project got an environmental clearance if the ministry is still to do a scientific study.
Congress appears to find its foothold on the issue but needs to be more convincing. Imagine a situation where the Congress MP fails to raise any query on Mhadei in Parliament even as the party talks about waging a full-fledged war on the issue. How can the sincerity of the Congress be trusted here because Parliament is a stage where representatives are required to raise questions and seek answers about the State they represent? Failure to do so will only amount to letting the State down.
On January 16, a Save Mhadei meeting was called at Sanquelim, a rally that was labelled as the "second Opinion Poll". The call was that if the government does not get the Centre to withdraw the clearance to Karnataka's DPR within 15 days, a Goa bandh will follow to show solidarity and unity. It's almost a month now, and there is no sign of the Mhadei movement that was ignited in Sawant's backyard. Probably, the constitution of a House Committee was an easy way to broker silence.
Now consider this. Last week, Union Jalshakti Minister Gajendrasing Shekawat disclosed that a central government report has six Goan rivers in the list of 311 polluted water bodies in India. The report listed high Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) in Mandovi, Zuari, Sal, Kalne, Khandepar and Mapusa.
The sad irony is that while political leaders are crying hoarse over Mhadei and how water diversion will impact the State, there is no word about the pathetic State of affairs of our rivers. Goa's water bodies, considered part and parcel of the State's identity, are facing uncontrolled pollution and degradation because raw sewage and wastewater are being released into these waters, triggering a rise in levels of faecal coliform. Yet, while drums are beating for a war on Mhadei, there is a deafening silence over the pollution of rivers.
