The issue is now getting political attention in the form of support from Shiv Sena and opposition from Left party trade unions.
AHMEDABAD: As the controversial toxic-laden French warship La Clemenceau comes closer to Alang, the issue is now getting political attention in the form of support from Shiv Sena and opposition from Left party trade unions.
Three Labour Unions, The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) announced on Thursday that they plan to involve international human rights agencies and labour unions from across the world to “protest against the toxic-laden ship Clemenceau, to stand up against the insensitive French government violating rules to dump its waste in India”.
“We will mobilise trade unions the world over to protest against the French government’s callousness in unceremoniously dumping its toxic waste in India. They have lied and misled the world about the ship’s hazards,” said H Mahadevan, national deputy general secretary of AITUC.
He added that French President Jacques Chirac is scheduled to visit India on February 20, during which the trade unions will exhibit their protest. Clemenceau is expected to reach India in March.
Meanwhile, the affluent ship-breakers of Alang have managed to garner political support by projecting Clemenceau as the saviour of the “sinking” Alang industry. Shiv Sena’s local leader Kishor Bhatt called a ‘bandh’ in Alang on Tuesday to protest the “Greenpeace intervention in the prosperity of Alang”.
“There were more than 40,000 migrant workers in Alang here, while there are only 4,000 today. It is a question of their survival,” he said. Bhatt handed over a memorandum to Alang Port Officer Kiritsinh Gohil.
The bandh had found many takers as most of the ship-breaking yards remained closed and other related markets also shut shop in protest. Transactions worth crores of rupees in Bhavnagar’s diamond industry have been held up for almost two days now due to the protests.
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