New Delhi: The ongoing row over the credits of Project Cheetah between the central government and the opposition Congress continued Sunday, after former union minister Jairam Ramesh called Prime Minister Narendra Modi “a pathological liar” and shared a photo of a 2009 letter.
On Saturday, PM Modi had released cheetahs brought from Namibia into a special enclosure at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park as part of the programme to reintroduce the feline in India seven decades after it was declared extinct in the country in 1952.
“This was the letter that launched Project Cheetah in 2009. Our PM is a pathological liar. I couldn’t lay my hands on this letter yesterday because of my preoccupation with the #BharatJodoYatra,” Ramesh tweeted.
According to the letter dated 6 October 2009, Jairam Ramesh, who was a Minister of State (independent charge) for Environment and Forests during the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, had written a letter to the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), giving a go-ahead to prepare a detailed roadmap for the introduction of cheetah at different potential sites.
The letter said the analysis should be carried out by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) with organisations like Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and WTI, making the state forest departments part of this study. “I expect that the roadmap would be submitted to the MoE&F by the end of January 2010,” the letter read.
Congress general secretary Jitendra Singh earlier tweeted a timeline of events of the Project Cheetah to claim the initiation of the project during the UPA government.
BJP national spokesperson Tom Vadakkan hit out at the Congress. “Jairam Ramesh or someone from congress goes visits a zoo somewhere… They need credit for it… Now, what do we give credit for? [sic],” he tweeted.
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Political tussle over Project Cheetah
The first shot was fired Saturday when Modi criticised the previous governments for not making any “constructive efforts” to reintroduce the cheetah. “It is unfortunate that we declared cheetahs extinct in 1952, but for decades no constructive efforts were made to reintroduce them in India,” he said.
“Project Cheetah, under which the cheetahs were reintroduced in the country after they became extinct seven decades ago, is our endeavour towards environment and wildlife conservation. Cheetahs are our guests; we should give them a few months to make Kuno National Park their home,” he added.
In 2009, the then UPA government conceived the ‘African Cheetah Introduction Project. The plan to introduce the spotted cat in the KNP by November last year was halted due to the Covid pandemic.
In January, Union Environoment Minister Bhupender Yadav launched the ‘Action Plan for Introduction of Cheetah in India’.
“On receipt of the report of the consultative meeting at Gajner, Shri. Jairam Ramesh- Minister of Environment and Forests (2009-11), Government of India (GoI) gave directions to Dr. M. K. Ranjitsinh, Wildlife Trust of India & Dr. Y. V. Jhala, Wildlife Institute of India to prepare a detailed road map for the reintroduction of the cheetah, which had to include a detailed analysis of different potential sites,” the action plan document noted.
“In pursuance of the decisions taken at Gajner and the directions of Ministry of Forest & Environment (GoI), ten sites within seven landscapes situated in the states of Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh (Figure 2) were surveyed between 2010 and 2012,” it added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: ‘Rewilding difficult on animals’ — Challenges of sustaining cheetahs begin at Kuno