'We will not allow you to plunder': Bhupender Yadav's sharp retort to Congress on Aravallis

New Delhi: A verbal duel between Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and his predecessor and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on the protection of Aravalli erupted on Thursday with Yadav asking Ramesh to check with his party colleague and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on who destroyed the Aravalli.

“You and your coterie are rattled because we have issued a total ban on mining in the Aravallis from Gujarat to Delhi. We will not allow you, Gehlot or anyone else in your party to plunder the sacred Aravalli range ever again. We will work for the restoration of what your party has ravaged,” the Union Minister said in a social media post.

“May be your 'environmentalist hat' would be credible if you questioned your party colleague Ashok Gehlot about who destroyed the Aravallis,” Yadav said.

The minister’s comments come in the wake of a post by Ramesh in which the former minister said the Modi government’s redefinition of the Aravallis, that went against all expert opinion, was dangerous and disastrous.

The spat between the two leaders comes in the backdrop of a controversial new definition of the Aravalli, made by a technical committee headed by the Union Environment Ministry and accepted by the Supreme Court for the consideration of mining.

As per the new definition, any hill with a height of 100 mt from the surrounding will be considered as Aravalli and protected. If there are two such hills at a distance of 500 mt, the area in between will be known as Aravalli range and will also be protected.

Critics, however, said such a definition by height would leave out a large portion of the Aravalli including many hillocks and undulating landscapes from any protection.

In his post Ramesh said, “According to the Forest Survey of India’s data that is authoritative, only 8.7 per cent of the Aravalli hills that are higher than 20 meters exceed 100 metres. If we take all Aravalli hills identified by FSI, not even 1per cent exceeds 100 meters.”

“The FSI believes, and rightly so, that height limits are dubious and all of the Aravallis irrespective of height should be protected,” he said.

When the minister said no FSI study said what Ramesh was claiming, the Congress leader said the FSI being an Environment Ministry body, it would say whatever the minister would want. “The FSI’s internal assessment warned the ministry. Is such an assessment being denied?” he asked.