Activist S P Udhayakumar, leading the protests against the upcoming nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu’s Kudankulam, has sent a legal notice to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his remarks over his group, media reports said Tuesday.
Earlier, Manmohan Singh said that American NGOs are behind the protests at the Kudankulam plant, in an interview with American magazine Science last week.
The Prime Minister’s statement invited rebuttals from activists and demanded Manmohan Singh should prove his statement.
The interview which appeared on Friday, quoted the PM saying: “What’s happening in Kudankulam…the atomic energy programme has got into difficulties because these NGOs, mostly, I think, based in the United States, don’t appreciate the need for our country to increase the energy supply.”
Udayakumar, the coordinator of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), was caustic in his reaction soon after the story circulated.
“The Prime Minister, who is the head of state of the largest democracy has no sympathetic word for a seven-month-long struggle which is non-violent and democratic. It is a shame. He is belittling the whole thing. We reject this accusation,” Udaykumar said.
“It is completely baseless and he has no trace of evidence. We are not receiving any money from any Indian or international NGO at all,” said the coordinator.
“The PM actually insults the people of India. Does he think we are all stooges like Congressmen?” he asked.
“He should take this back. He should prove this charge or get out of government or politics. He is a nominated prime minister of multinationals and so he is saying like this,” Udaykumar said.
“We are not Congressmen, we are people of India. We are not fighting for political office or gains,” he said.
On Friday, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) V Narayanasamy also backed the PM saying that they have received reports about the NGOs in Tirunelveli and Thuthukudi around the project being funded by NGOs of USA and Scandinavia.
He said three NGOs were diverting foreign funds for nourishing this agitation.
On Tuesday, a German national was deported back to his home country on charges of raising funds for protests against the Kudankulam nuclear plant, media reports said.
Sonnteg Reiner Hermann, 50, was detained from a hotel in Nagercoil on Monday by Tamil Nadu ‘Q’ branch sleuths, who monitor the activities of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the state, reports said.
“We had been watching his movements and found that he was sourcing funds for activists in Tamil Nadu. We collected Hermann’s mobile phone call details and found that he was in touch with Lalmohan, a close aide of Udayakumar who is leading the anti-nuclear agitation in Kudankulam,” a government official said.
Villagers had first begun the protest against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP), located in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, last year, resorting to hunger strikes and later continued with the agitation in various forms against the nuclear plant.
Even though India’s Department of Atomic Energy had cleared the Rs 13,000-crore project, locals and environmental organisations, including Greenpeace, have raised concerns over the project’s use of purportedly risky Russian technology.
