The All India Kisan Sabha and All India Agricultural Workers Union has in a statement issued on July 14 jointly demanded the Narendra Modi government to immediately withdraw the decision effecting transfer of tribal villages of Khammam district in Telangana to the state of Andhra Pradesh for Polavaram Dam Project. This will adversely affect the rights and livelihood of nearly three lakh tribal people in the region. The amendments to the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 passed by Loksabha on July 11, 2014 are arbitrary and in violation of Article 3 and 4 of Indian Constitution that define the process to be adopted in case of transfer of territories from one state to other. The Polavaram project is in violation of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 which provides land for land in command area for the affected people under irrigation projects. Large scale displacement in this region affecting 205 villages poses serious threat to the ethnic, linguistic and cultural identity of the tribal communities. It is mandatory to obtain prior consent of the concerned gram sabha or the panchayats in the Scheduled Area. Polavaram project is also in violation of the National Tribal Policy which states that “any project which displaces more than 50,000 tribal people should not be taken up”. The people of Telangana have observed harthal all over the state on July 13, 2014 and hundreds of activists have assembled at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on July 14 to sit in a dharna in front of the parliament. AIKS and AIAWU leaders Hannan Mollah, K Vardarajan, Suneet Chopra and P Krishna Prasad among others greeted the activists who sat on dharna. AIKS and AIAWU have strongly condemned the Narendra Modi government for its blatant violation of rights of tribal people by arbitrary decisions to assist the corporate- bureaucratic nexus to make profit out of such projects in the name of development. AIKS and AIAWU have appealed to the people of both the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to support the agitation under the joint action committee of People of Khammam District to protect the rights of tribal people of the region.