BHUBANESWAR: The Opposition is likely to taste political victory ahead of the panchayat polls in February next year if indications from the BJD that the State Government will withdraw from Sindol project turn out to be true. The Government has reasons to back out from the project to be jointly implemented by the National Hydro Power Corporation (NHPC) and the Orissa Hydro Power Corporation (OHPC) on the Mahanadi. It does not want to open another front to be exploited by the Opposition at a time when it is mired in several scams and facing protests for every large project, including Posco. Opposition to the Sindol project has intensified with influential BJD leaders from the Western Orissa districts requesting the State Government to reconsider its decision. What has unnerved the BJD managers is the fact that senior leaders from the region met at the residence of Health and Family Welfare Minister Prasanna Acharya calling for a halt to the project. The agitators have now announced that they will observe parallel Independence Day in the Western Orissa districts making the situation more complicated. This has provided added ammo to the Opposition political parties who will have another issue to embarrass the State Government in the Assembly during the short Monsoon Session beginning August 17. The statement of Energy Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak that there would be no displacement for the project has added fuel to the fire. As the project has a history of more than 30 years, people of the area have taken it as another instance of the State Government trying to mislead them. The track record of the State Government on Posco and Vedanta projects has not helped to assuage the feelings of the agitating people either. Under pressure from the growing protests, the State Government announced that there would be public hearing in the affected areas before going ahead with the project. However, the protests have intensified further after the announcement. The Sindol project has been scrapped several times by the State Government because of strong local protest. During the 2001 byelection to the Rairakhol Assembly constituency, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had announced that the State Government would not go ahead with the project. The BJD had even won the bypoll on the plank. But the project has been revived again by the Chief Minister.
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