Amidst a stalemate over attempts to hammer out a solution to the Narmada imbroglio, Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar Saturday decided to continue with her hunger strike and demanded that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh take a decision on it at the earliest.
"We will wait and watch for the prime minister's decision, hoping that it would not breach the trust that the Supreme Court has placed in his position and stature," Patkar, who is spearheading the anti-dam agitation, said in a statement in New Delhi.
Giving a political colour to the whole issue, Patkar said, "It is Modi's (Gujarat chief minister) politics, now hand in glove with Ahmed Patel, leader of Gujarat Congress, that gave the process a turn by making the matter referred to the review committee of the Narmada Control Authority."
Modi has announced to go on a 51-hour hunger strike from Sunday to protest against the decision of the RCNCA to refer the issue to the prime minister.
"Thanks to Bharatiya Janata Party's politics, not only Modi, but the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh also has with full knowledge of the gravity of the ground reality, decided to support Modi at the cost of farmers and their fertile lands," she said adding, "it is in this context that the prime minister's vision and commitment is to be tested."
"We three -- Jamsingh Bhai Nargave, Bhagwatibai and myself -- decided to continue our fast," the NBA leader said.
The RCNCA, which met in New Delhi in the wake of the anti-dam agitation failed to achieve a breakthrough with chief ministers of BJP-ruled Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan putting up a stiff resistance to the Centre's move to stop work on the project touted as 'Gujarat's lifeline'.
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