Political parties appealed to make Ganga pollution their poll plan

Varanasi, Sep 21 (UNI) The participants on the opening day of a two-day 'Ganga Mukti Maha Sangam', organised by the Ganga Mahasabha, today asked all political parties to include the sacred river's pollution in their election manifesto in the coming Lok Sabha polls.

They simultaneously appealed to all the parties not to make a political capital of the issue and said it was not an issue of any particular religion or caste, but of all Indians.

This menace should be fought unitedly, they underlined.

Sankat Mochan Foundation President Prof Veer Bhadra Mishra noted there was no flow in the river. Drains and factories effluents, including tanneries, were still thrown directly in the river at various places. Without checking the fall of domestic sewage and factories effluents, the problem cannot be solved.

He suggested that a legislation be brought in Parliament to check the falling of drains in rivers and made punishable.

The convenor of the Ganga Mahasabha and forme judge of the Allahabad High Court Girdhar Malviya said ''besides being a river, Ganga was a world heritage. Sadly, we have forgotten its significance in the charm of modernity. We are throwing the effluents of our houses in the river.

''If we fail to conserve its purity, coming generation will not forgive us.'' He said Ganga's water was reaching only upto Kanpur and after that, its all effluents. Its water was even fit for worshipping.

Mahant of Teekarmafi Hari Chaitnya Brahmchari said notwithstanding the Allahabad HC's order for the release of adequate water from the Narora dam, the government was not doing it.

He said that all the political parties unite for making Ganga pollution free and demanded that the river be declared a national river.

UNI JL ATI RN1227