MALKANGIRI : The CPI (Maoist) has called for Malkangiri bandh on Thursday to lodge its protest against the controversial Polavaram irrigation project. The project, it is said, would submerge 15 to 20 villages under Motu tehsil and also damage the flora and fauna of the area. In a release, the Malkangiri-Koraput-Visakha Border (MKVB) divisional committee secretary, Benu stated that the project would benefit capitalists, multi-national companies and not locals. “I urge people who are going to be displaced to fight unitedly against the conspiracy being hatched by Modi and Naveen Governments to facilitate the entry of multi-national companies. Both are getting the poor displaced from their homeland in the name of development,” he wrote.

The Maoists put up hundreds of posters at RSC-10, Gunthabeda, Kurmanur and Dorabeda villages under Chitrakonda police limits and urged the villagers to protest the project.They also put up posters urging locals to oppose inauguration of Gurupriya bridge. The rebels reasoned that the bridge is aimed at intensifying Operation Green Hunt, handing over the abundant mineral resources in the mountains across the region to foreign companies and facilitate bauxite export by them.