The Wayanad landslide tragedy is a man-made disaster and the "votebank politics" of the Kerala government that allowed rampant encroachment and commercial exploitation of the ecologically sensitive region is responsible for it – slammed BJP MP Tejasvi Surya in the Parliament on Wednesday.
The Bengaluru South MP who highlighted that Kerala witnesses the majority of all major landslides in the country, noted that over the last seven years, 59.2% of all landslides in the country were reported from Kerala (2,239 out of 3,782).
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“An IIT Delhi report, in January 2024, identified that 58.2 per cent of the area in Wayanad falls under the 'High to very High' risk category and recommended evacuation. The Kerala State Disaster Management Authority in 2020 advised relocating 4,000 families from land-slide-prone areas in Wayanad, especially those on the eastern slope of Western Ghats.
Two expert panel reports in 2011 and 2013 also recommended that the area where the tragedy has today occurred should be included in the list of eco-sensitive zones and further commercialisation of the region should be stopped. But no illegal encroachments were removed nor any action was taken to stop the rampant construction or the mining in the area, owing to pressure from various religious organisations,” alleged Surya, adding that former
Kerala forest minister K Raju had admitted the same in the Kerala Legislative Assembly.
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Surya, who is also the national president of the BJP Yuva Morcha, took a dig at Rahul Gandhi saying the former MP from Wayanad had not raised the issue of landslides and floods in Wayanad even once in the Parliament though he had represented the constituency previously. Mocking at the Congress, Surya said that former Congress MP P.T. Thomas, who had taken a bold stand on conserving the Western Ghats, had been denied a ticket from Idukki by the party.
