There is no basis whatsoever for your assertion that the said protest was funded by foreign countries, read the notice.
Kudunkulam anti-nuclear activist SP Udhayakumar sends legal notice to Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi on Saturday for his alleged remarks that the protestors were funded by foreign agents.
The legal notice by advocate M Radhakrishnan mentioned that during the interaction with civil service aspirants on April 6th, the governor made a categorical statement that the said protest was funded by foreign countries and you have thereby insulted thousands of men and women who had participated in the protest in the public interest.
There is no basis whatsoever for your assertion that the said protest was funded by foreign countries, read the notice.
“My client hopes that you, as the Governor of Tamil Nadu, will immediately make appropriate amends to the said false statement made against my client who was the coordinator of the protest against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu and all those protestors against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, and will not drive my client to have recourse to law,” the notice read.
Earlier Ravi had stoked fresh controversy by remarking that foreign funds had fuelled the protests against Sterlite plant in Thoothukudi and Kudankulam nuclear power plant. While addressing civil service aspirants in Raj Bhavan, Ravi said such protests were aimed at hindering progress..
The DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) said that ever since Ravi assumed office in 2021, his speeches and activities have been controversial and mysterious. “Our struggle will not cease until he stops activities that lower the Assembly’s dignity.”
Forgetting that he was a Governor, Ravi has been “desperate to project himself as a representative of the BJP and RSS”, a joint statement of SPA parties said.
People had been opposing the plant since its proposal in 1979. The proposal however, was halted because of the protests. It was brought back in 2000, and construction started under the BJP government of then prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.In 2011, thousands from the vicinity of the plant protested against it, fearing a nuclear disaster, in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster According to the protesters, evacuation of people in the event of a nuclear disaster would be impossible.
“To say that the Kudankulam (nuclear power plant) and Sterlite protests were driven by funds from abroad is a denigration of the Tamil Nadu people. These are people’s struggles in which lakhs (of them) took part. What is the ulterior motive behind diverting such protests as a foreign conspiracy,” the SPA asked.
While speaking to the students at Raj Bhavan, Ravi had commented on the procedure for approval of bills, remarking that if a bill was “withheld”, it meant that the bill in question was dead. The DMK and its allies said that this comment of his was a breach of the oath of office he had taken, and it showed his “irresponsible” nature.
