Place demand for formation of tribunal to resolve Mahanadi row, CPM tells Odisha govt

Bhubaneswar: The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) today urged the Odisha government to place its demand before the Centre for formation of a tribunal to resolve the ongoing Mahanadi water row with the Chhattisgarh government.

On this issue, hundreds of CPM activists, led by senior leader Janardan Pati, took out a rally from Master Canteen Square to Lower PMG Square where the party workers staged demonstration.

Talking to media persons, Pati, while talking about the Mahanadi issue, said a senior BJP leader of Odisha, who is the Union minister, is talking more on Mahanadi than the Chhattisgarh chief minister. “I don’t know how the Odisha government is reacting to the statements of this Union minister. But we want to make it very clear to the chief minister that the tribunal is the only way to resolve the Mahanadi row between the two states. Let the Odisha government file a petition in the Supreme Court to direct the Centre for formation of the tribunal. It is the chief minister, who can only clarify the reasons as to why he is yet to move the tribunal on the issue”, the CPM leader pointed out.

He further said his party would also ask the chief minister as to why he had not raked up the issue 15 years ago even though the state government was aware of the construction of dams and barrages in upper Mahanadi by the Chhattisgarh government.

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Taking the side of Odisha, Pati said for the last 60 years since the construction of Hirakud dam in 1960, no government in the state till date has constructed a dam or barrage on Mahanadi.