Kimmane Rathnakar announces protest march in Tirthahalli opposing ESA notification

Former Minister and Congress leader Kimmane Rathnakar on Wednesday announced a protest march in Tirthahalli taluk on September 7 against the Kasturirangan Committee report on the Western Ghats and demanding the withdrawal of the Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) notification.

Addressing presspersons in Shivamogga on Thursday, Mr. Ratnakar said the padayatra would begin from Binkla village in Tirthahalli taluk, about seven km away, at 9 a.m. on Monday. The village chosen to launch the protest was one among those listed in the notification. Prasanna Kumar, District Congress Committee president, and Ramesh Hegde, district president of the party’s campaign committee, would inaugurate the march.

Minister for School Education Madhu Bangarappa and former Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake, who is also State president of party’s campaign committee, would take part in the stage programme at Tirthahalli. Mr. Ratnakar clarified that he would invite everyone opposed to the Kasturirangan report, except for the JD(S) and the BJP party leaders. 

Asked on the district-wide protest marches being taken out by other Congress leaders including R.M. Manjunath Gowda under the banner of Western Ghats Raita Sahakari Vedike, Mr. Rathnakar maintained that in those protest marches, even BJP leaders had been taking part. However, he would not wish to march alongside BJP leaders on the issue of the ESA notification. 

“On the issue of the notification, we have to protest and raise slogans against the BJP at the Centre. How can we march together? The BJP leaders, instead of joining the protests here, should appeal to their party government at the Centre to withdraw the notification,” he commented.

He made it clear that he was in favour of conserving the Western Ghats and the wildlife, however not at the cost of human lives. “I have been against the K. Kasturirangan committee recommendations that impose restrictions on people in the Malnad region. In the last 100 years, the population of the country had gone up from 20 crore to 140 crore. Human beings require land to build houses and cultivate. Many have built their dwelling places in forest lands. I will not support any report that favours conserving the wildlife, ignoring the human conditions,” he pointed out.

District Congress Committee president R. Prasanna Kumar and others were present at the press conference.