Shiv Se re-kindles anti-JNPP protests

Ratgiri (Maharashtra), March 19: The Shiv Se on Thursday renewed its protests against the 9,900 MW Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project (JNPP), coming up with French collaboration in the district here. Around one thousand activists led by party MP Viyak Raut took out a protest march to the JNPP, but were stopped midway by the police. The protests are being viewed as another weapon to target the ruling ally at the Centre and in the state, the Bharatiya Jata Party, a week after Shiv Se President Uddhav Thackeray demanded that the power plant be shifted to Gujarat. “We have no objections to the Jaitapur project...But we strongly object to it coming up in Ratgiri and Konkan region...Let the BJP shift it to Gujarat if they want,” Raut told mediapersons as he and other activists were bundled off in police vans for detention this afternoon. Local legislators Rajan Salvi and Uday Samant contended that the project is contrary to the interests of the people of Konkan region and the party would not allow it to come up here at any cost. Earlier Thackeray had said that the project would ‘destroy’ the ecology and livelihood of the people of Konkan and the party would not permit it, but would not oppose it if it was shifted to Gujarat.  (IANS)