Congress opposes forceful land acquisition for POSCO

Bhubaneswar, Dec 9: Former chief minister of Orissa and senior Congress leader J B Patnaik today accused the state government of forcefully displacing people from their land to facilitate the POSCO project in Paradeep.

Talking to newspersons here, Mr Patnaik said that an unprecedented situation prevailed in the proposed project area as the government deployed a large number of police personnel, imposed prohibitory orders and restricted the movement of people in the area.

The people, he said, could not even voice their opinion due to fear psychosis created by the government, which had been claiming that everything was normal in the area.

Mr Patnaik said the people of three gram panchayats Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gada Kujanga, irrespective of their party affiliation were opposing the plant and did not want to be displaced from their land.

UNI