Taking a cue from Garhwal’s famous Chipko movement, Aam Aadmi Party workers, along with tea garden employees , clung to trees to express opposition to the acquisition of tea estate for the Smart City project.

Led by senior AAP leader Anoop Nautiyal, the protesters reached the Harbanswala tea garden and clung to the trees in the area. They also raised slogans against the state and Central governments on the proposed Smart City project.

Nautiyal said AAP would continue to protest and oppose corruption in the name of the Smart City project. Both BJP and Congress are hand-in-glove in the name of the Smart City project.

Meanwhile, Communist Party of India (Marxist) activists have decided to send postcards, signed by nearly 5,000 people who may be displaced, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to register their protest against the proposed Smart City project on the tea estate land.

A party official said the Smart City project would adversely affect the environment as hundreds of trees would be chopped off.