H Raja, national secretary of the BJP, who is touring and monitoring the ground situation in the coastal regions of Kanyakumari district ravaged by cyclone Ockhi, said that there is a wide conspiracy behind the agitation launched under the auspices of the priests and nuns belonging to the Catholic Church against the Central and State Governments. “They had displayed a banner showing ‘tearful homages to Prime Minister and Chief Minister’. This should be thoroughly probed,” Raja told The Pioneer.
The district has been brought to a standstill since Thursday by fisher folk led by the priests and nuns who are protesting against the “indifferent and callous” attitude of the Central and State Governments in saving fishermen who went missing in the aftermath of the Cyclone Ockhi. “The Government failed to give us advance information about the cyclones which could have saved the lives of hundreds of fishermen who went for deep sea fishing from the coastal hamlets in the district,” the protesting fishermen told reporters at Kanyakumari.
Father Ilango, second-in-command, Our Lady of Ransom Church, Kanyakumari said that the rescue and relief operations are happening sear the shoreline while the fishers were fishing 100 to 150 nautical miles away from the shore. He laughed it off when asked why were banners showing tearful homages to PM and CM were displayed by the priests and demonstrators.
Raja said the search and rescue operations by the Indian Navy and Coast Guard (which are continuing even at the time of going to Press) have traced almost all the fishermen barring 2 to 30 fishermen. “Search operations are on and the Central and State Governments are in touch with the State Governments from where the missing fishermen were located. Efforts are on to bring back the fishermen from Tamil Nadu who reached places like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Lakshdweep back to Kanyakumari,” said Raja.
“The Indian Meteorological Department and the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) had been warning about the impending cyclone since November 28 itself. The village resource centres functioning in the coastal hamlets under the patronage of the parishes did not pass on this message to the fishermen’s. There is a hidden agenda behind the protest marches,” said Raja who is monitoring the rescue operations in Kerala.
According to Raja, the fishermen in Kanyakumari were demanding the same compensation package announced by the Government of Kerala to their counterparts in the neighbouring State. “But fishermen in Kerala are on a path of agitation and did not allow even the chief minister of the State to set his foot in the fishing villages”, said Raja..
Father Ilango said Kerala Government has declared Rs 20 lakh for the fishermen who lost their lives in the cyclone. “We want the Tamil Nadu Government to declare an equal compensation package,” he said. Ramakrishnan Gauthaman, Vedic Science Research Centre, who is working among the fishermen community in Kanyakumari, said the Church-funded NGO entrusted with disseminating the information from IMD to the fishermen failed to do so. “With Nirmala Sitharaman emerging as a leader who could connect with the fisher folk, the Church is wary of losing its stranglehold over the community that it has been keeping as bonded labourersfor the last two centuries.