Mangaluru: The members of Aam Aadmi Party on Friday condemned the Central Government’s decision – allowing multinational companies – to conduct deep sea fishing in Indian waters.

“The decision will spell disaster for the millions of Indian fishermen and their families”, Raghavendra Thane, one of the members said during the press meet here in the city.

He said the excuse given by the government that Indians are not capable of deep water fishing, due to which a lot of fish stock moves away from Indian waters appears to be a lame.

He said Centre has not considered major risks that MNCs can pose in destroying the livelihood of Indian fishermen and also of causing grave danger to the delicate marine ecology. This raises a doubt if the BJP, which is ruling the Central Government, has vested interests to go against the people and the environment, they alleged.

Pointing out that thousands of families are dependent on fishing along the Karnataka’s 320 km coastline apart from businessmen and industries, they said, instead of providing support, relief and encouragement , the government was considering this retrograde step.

“While Centre can provide Rs 6,000crore loan to an Indian capitalist to invest in Australian coal mines, then what prevents the government in investing in Indian businesses,” they questioned. They also questioned the Karnataka state and the Fisheries Development Corporation inaction, in this regard?

He said, AAP therefore demands the State Government to take up the issue strongly with the Central Government and not allow any MNC companies to operate on the coast of Karnataka.  If this is not done, the party warns both the governments that it will not hesitate to take up bigger protests in the coming days.

Rajendar Kumar, Alexander D’Souza S. H. Gurudev, Raghavendra Thane, Sreedhar Kalllahalla, Dr. Merica Pinto, M.R. Vasudeva, Rohan Shiri, M.Salim and others were present.