Environmentalist Vandana Shiva today demanded that Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar resign if he was “not able” to ban use of endosulfan pesticide in the country, which had caused several health problems and large scale damage to the environment.
Delivering the keynote address at an “Anti-Endosulfan Convention” here, she said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi should “drop” Pawar from the ministry if he did not take initiative to ban the pesticide.
“Pawar is more interested in cricket affairs than the sufferings of poor people affected by the ill-effects of the pesticide,” she alleged.
“Even one per cent of the tax concession extended by Pawar as ICC chief to the game of cricket would have been enough to compensate and rehabilitate endosulfan victims,” she said.
The convention was organised by Anti-Endosulfan Movement, which is spearheading a campaign for a nationwide ban of the pesticide.
Use of endosulfan in cashew plantations in northern parts of the district had resulted in the deaths of several persons and crippled many, following which it was banned in Kerala last year.
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