BHUBANESWAR: With politics hotting up over the Posco land acquisition, Dhinkia village has become a convergence point of social activists and Opposition parties.Though announced earlier, the district administration could not go ahead with the land acquisition process in Gobindpur panchayat on Friday because of bad weather. But the State Government is feeling the heat. Social activists __ from Swami Agnivesh to Vandana Shiva __ are in the State to express solidarity with the villagers opposed to forcible land takeover. Several Left leaders, including Basudeb Acharia, have also arrived to support the agitators. The administration, which had suspended land acquisition work for about a week in view of Raja celebration, said the process would resume on Saturday, weather permitting. The process of land acquisition was stalled because of protests by locals, as well as ‘Raja’ festival, for five days. While the BJP and the five political parties, including the CPI and the CPM, have decided to depute separate teams for the project, the Congress had sent a four-member delegation to assess the situation.Meanwhile, the Orissa Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) on Friday maintained that it will not oppose the steel plant by Posco if its site is changed. The OPCC president, Niranjan Patnaik, told mediapersons that there is 7,000-acre land on the other side of the river, which can be used for construction of the steel plant. But the State Government is eager to give land on this fertile patch because of the interest shown by the South Korean company for it, he said. Alleging that the Chief Minister has gone back on his word that force will not be applied for land acquisition, Niranjan expressed doubts whether the Government really wants the plant to come up. While land could be given to Vedanta in three months, the Posco issue is going on for long, he said.Niranjan, who was the industry minister in the J B Patnaik Cabinet in the 1980’s, recalled that Indian Oil Corporation and Oswal also wanted to set up oil refinery and fertiliser plant at the same place. But he had visited the area and given a report that these plants cannot be set up in this fertile patch, he said.
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