The Centre’s decision to put on hold the contentious Par-Tapi-Narmada river link project was a ‘gimmick’, the Gujarat Congress has alleged. Party leaders on Wednesday resolved to continue the ongoing tribal agitation in the southern part of poll-bound Gujarat till the Centre scraps the project and releases a white paper on the project’s ‘damage potential on tribal habitats’.

The Centre, with BJP state government in supporting role, is believed to have quickly backtracked on the ambitious project sensing the damage potential of the tribal agitation on the assembly polls slated for the yearend. The Congress attempt to keep the issue alive is also attributed to the same. The tribal agitation against the project gained momentum after the state Congress joined it and soon senior Union ministers held hectic parleys with their Gujarat counterparts before announcing that the project was on hold.

At a media briefing in New Delhi on Wednesday, Gujarat’s leader of opposition Sukhram Rathwa, Congress MP Shaktisinh Gohil, and an important mobiliser for the agitation, Anand Patel, MLA, said they considered the government’s announcement of putting the project on hold a ‘jumla’ prompted by the yearend assembly polls. They contended that the Centre would revive the project, just as it resumed hiking fuel prices after pausing it during the recent round of assembly polls. The agitator-turned-celebrity Congress leader Hardik Patel scheduled to join party colleagues at the briefing did not turn up.