Post News Network
New Delhi: Biju Janata Dal (BJD) members staged a walkout from the Lok Sabha Thursday in protest against Union finance minister Arun Jaitley’s statement on the Polavaram project and the Centre’s commitment to complete the controversial multipurpose dam.
The Centre has to provide support to Andhra Pradesh “to build its capital” and to “to complete the Polavaram (project)” as the state has to start afresh after division, the finance minister said during the discussion on the Finance Bill 2016.
“For Polavaram, we are trying to organise from the special fund that we have created under NABARD so that a substantial part of the Polavaram project will be funded. All I want to assure you is as a state that has lost a lot of revenue after the partition, every rupee that Andhra Pradesh is entitled to and which it requires is being given,” said Jaitley.
The BJD MPs protested against the finance minister’s commitment on Polavaram and demanded that central funding to the project be stopped immediately. They alleged that no public hearing has been held in Orissa where several villages will be submerged.
The MPs also urged that construction of the dam be stopped until the court has given a verdict. “Do you not think that we should wait for the Supreme Court judgement?” asked BJD leader Bhartruhari Mahatab.
However, the finance minister said that “Under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, there is a central commitment on Polavaram. I cannot go back on that commitment.”
Expressing displeasure over the reply of the finance minister, all the BJD members staged a walkout.
“The finance minister in his reply during the discussion on Finance Bill 2016 tried to portray Polavaram as a national project. This was evidently an act of mischief. We BJD members protested saying the matter was under consideration of the Supreme Court. In spite of that, when Arun Jaitley continued referring to Polavaram, we BJD MPs staged a walk out in protest,” said BJD MP Tathagata Satpathy.