Rahul Gandhi, Pinarayi Vijayan want Bandipur vehicle ban off; Karnataka holds firm

BENGALURU: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan in New Delhi on Tuesday to plead the case of his voters in Wayanad, sections of whom have been on a hunger strike demanding an end to the nine-hour ban on vehicular traffic in the Bandipur tiger reserve stretch of Karnataka.
“People are struggling. The night travel ban is causing a lot of pain to the people of Wayanad and Kerala. It needs to be tackled at the earliest,” Gandhi told reporters. The Kerala CM, he added, responded with a promise to step up his efforts with the Centre to ease the ban. The Congress leader also assured his cooperation to Vijayan with the promise that he will pursue the demand with the Centre.

“The traffic ban is causing much inconvenience to the people of Wayanad and those in the bordering districts in Karnataka,” Vijayan’s office tweeted later. People of Wayanad, the hilly region represented in the Lok Sabha by Rahul Gandhi, have been on a relay hunger strike for the past one week, and have even taken out a march from Sulthan Bathery to Moolehole, the border area of Karnataka, calling for immediate easing of the ban.

Gandhi backed the agitation with a tweet, saying he stood in solidarity with the people who have been protesting the traffic ban.

Karnataka, however, indicated it is in no mood to consider the demand. Education & labour minister S Suresh Kumar, who is the in-charge of Chamarajanagar district, told ET that his government’s position on the subject was non-negotiable. “We had conveyed we cannot do much about this even when then Kerala CM Oommen Chandy met us in Bengaluru many years ago. Our position has not changed since then,” he said.

“We have been using the territory of wildlife, and road accidents have killed wild animals in the past. Banning traffic in night hours is part of our overall conservation efforts,” the senior minister said. “Just because animals have no voting rights, we cannot trample upon their rights in their own territory,” he said.

Karnataka banned night traffic in NH 67E (Karnataka-TN) and 212 (Karnataka-Kerala) 10 years ago, and the same was upheld by the high court. According to the forest officials in Bengaluru, about 7,000 vehicles use the two inter-state highways in the Bandipur forest during the day time. “There would be unimaginable loss of wildlife if the ban were to be eased,” according to the forest department. It has further advocated extending the night ban by three more hours, and make it from 6 pm to 6 am.

None of the Congress leaders in Karnataka gave their opinion or identified themselves with Rahul Gandhi’s line of thought for fear of displeasing wildlife lovers and others in Karnataka.