Ruling out the possibility of implementing the Sethusamudram canal project in any other alignment, Union Shipping Minister T R Balu on Saturday said that the Centre will move the Supreme Court to seek permission for carrying out the project in the present route.

Asked about DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's remark that he was not averse to an alternate alignment, the minister said his leader had made that remark "out of anguish as he was repeatedly asked whether he was bent upon destroying the Ram Sethu."

"I do not see any such thing as Ram Sethu and I know only Adam's bridge (as Ram Sethu is popularly called)," Balu told reporters in Chennai on Saturday.

Taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party for opposing the demolition of the Sethu, he said the alternate alignment being proposed by that party had already been rejected by the Union Environment Ministry during the National Democratic Allaince regime in 1999.

Balu alleged that the entire project and the present alignment was approved by the BJP-led regime when they were in power, but party leaders were now trying to whip up religious passions to gain political mileage from the issue.