From B Prasant/INN
ARMS CACHE RECOVERED
TRINAMULIS ATTACK FISHERIES'
MINISTER'S RALLY AT KHEJURI
Kolkata, April 20: Trinamuli hooligans, about 50 in number, all armed with countrymade guns, swords, and knives, pounced on the stage from where the fisheries minister of the LF government, Kironmoy Nanda leader of the Socialist Party was to address a rally on the evening of 19 April. The venue was the Nonapara village at Nichaksaba area at Khejuri II GP. In the lead was the Sabhadhipati of the Midnapore east himself, one Ranjit Mondal, and a GP member of the locality, Debashis Das.
Led by Mondal and Das, the drunken goons had earlier issued threats to the people of the area, the GPs of which are now with the Trinamulis, as are the Panchayat Samities, not to go near the rally to be spoken to by Kironmoy. The hoods even cut down trees and attempted to barricade out Kironmoy. Then they suddenly realised that people were streaming in despite whatever evil deeds the Trinamulis had done, to their worst, and that the speaker himself was well on his way to the rally grounds.
Infuriated, the thoroughly desperate hooligans jumped up on the dais, and broke it completely apart with well-aimed blows from shovels, spades, and large hammers. Then they proceeded to tear down and desecrate the Red Flag, finally putting the entire stage to leaping flames by pouring petrol and lighting up matchsticks.
While the local CPI (M) leadership, out of considerations of safety, prevailed upon a completely exasperated Kironmoy from proceeding farther, the LF itself held not one but two succeeding rallies at the same grounds one in the evening the other late into the night, daring the Trinamuli goons to come forth if their courage or lack of it permitted them to do so. CPI (M) leader of the district and LF convenor of the Contai Lok Sabha seat Nirmal Jana has told us that protest rallies and marches are being held today 20 April throughout Khejuri and that such protestations shall be held all over Contai on 21 April.
Elsewhere, an arms cache was recovered by the police at Kendemari at Nandigram I called a 'liberated zone' by the 'Maoists' and their Trinamuli underlings. Sheikh Bacchu who is a history-sheeter and is a covert Maoist activist was caught red-handed while trying to smuggle arms into Khejuri, Kendemari and beyond.
The cache included one Italian Biretta 9mm pistol, one Italian Valtro 9mm pistol, plus one US Army-issue lightweight Smith & Wesson 9mm (Polymer Frame) pistol as well as several countrymade revolvers plus hundreds of cartridges, some packed into magazines, some carried loose in pre-sealed polythene bags.
One shudders to think what would have happened to how many innocents had not the miscreant with his deadly cache been apprehended. One recalls that just in the wake of the declaration of results of the 2008 Panchayat polls, two CPI (M) workers were killed at Kendemari at the hand of 'Maoists' and Trinamulis.
AT GHATA BERA, BALARAMPUR IN PURULIA
MAOISTS LAND MINE BLASTS: TWO SERIOUSLY INJURED
A land mine burst with a deafening sound at Balarampur area in the district of Purulia seriously injuring two CPI (M) workers. The land mine was of the form of an improvised explosive device (IUD) packed with steel balls and nails that explode out with deadly effect once somebody steps on the spring-loaded trip wire.
The CPI (M) workers on their way back from fields when they tripped up the trigger and faced the wrath of the explosion. Eyewitnesses told us that the entire area had been plastered with 'Maoist' posters, which called, as is the wont of the people of that ilk, to boycott the polls, or else…. The two kisans injured in the blast are Samaj Mondal and Madan Mondal.
They were rescued by a rather unlikely person in the shape of an owner of an illegal distillery of the area who was courageous enough to step around the several other trip wires stretched nearby and pull away the heavily bleeding men. Admitted to hospital nearby, the doctors give the two injured but a slim chance of survival. Nevertheless, we believe that they are tough kisans, and true sons of the soil, and that they shall pull through.
Kaliachak in Maldah district
Bombs, guns found at congress leader's house
Within 24 hours of the blast, the Police stumbled upon a large cache of fire arms and bombs, plus bomb-making materials from the houses of a clutch of Congress leaders in Maldah district. Acting on a tip-off, the Police raided the house of Sheikh Siraj, a Pradesh Congress muscleman, at Jadupur under Kaliachak PS.
They found two large-calibre 'pipe guns' (that fire the banned .319 calibre ammunition) and a large quantity of deadly 'socket bombs' that have the capacity to kill dozens each. Siraj and his two 'worthy' sons also history sheeters and Pradesh Congress loyalists were taken into custody.
Interrogating Siraj the Police found another useful lead. Acting on it, they raided the house of Azahar Ali, a Pradesh Congress leader and a strongman of the area of Bamangram at Kaliachak, who was then, caught making IUDs and bombs. More than a 100 bombs and IUDs were recovered as were 20-odd socket bombs. There is no doubt that these weapons of killing were prepared by the Pradesh Congress stalwarts for the forthcoming phases of the Lok Sabha elections in Bengal.
eom
Showing posts with label CPI(M). Show all posts
Showing posts with label CPI(M). Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Bengal
From B Prasant/INN
PEOPLE THROW SIEGE AROUND
'MAOISTS' AT LALGARH-SIJUA
Kolkata, April 20: The bourgeois media has been in vaunted claim for weeks together now that there has been a siege of the entire Lalgarh-Sijua area in the western part of Midnapore and that neither the CPI (M) nor the state administration are able to approach the area under 'siege.' Well, we have news for them.
A visit to the Arma village cluster would change their perception – or good. The village cluster inhabited by the indigenous people or the adivasis have chosen to counter the so-called 'siege' with one of their own. How so, one might well ask. The answer has to be seen, perceived, and the belief system allowed taking over.
When the joint 'Maoist'-Trinamuli gangsters approached the villages with a demand for contributions in 'men and money,' or face the worst, the villagers came out as one, staves at the ready to face the glisten of the gun barrels, and quietly but firmly told off the raiders that they had start going back or empty handed or they it would be who face the worse. Do you or do you not see that we outnumber you by 100 to one, was the cry that went up from the villages. The 'braves' of the left sectarian brand had a word with their reactionary hirelings – the whole ensemble then fled, never to return again.
The entire cluster had not come up with any contribution from their solid ranks for these heinous murders. The women and children now recognise who the enemy is, and who is their friend. The unseen minder of the 'Maoists' who provide training in sophisticated guerrilla warfare in the Dalilpur jangal mahals have gone away time again empty handed—they were not able to recruit a single 'cadre' from the Aram village. At the last count when we paid a visit to the zone at night, we were met with comrades of the different local committees that now function both overtly and occasionally covertly in 50 of the 92 Gram Panchayats that the villages cover.
On Sunday afternoon, almost after sundown, the 'Maoists,' we saw, make another attempt at encroachment of the 'rebel' villages. They were politely but firmly refused entry. After what had happened at Lalgarh barely ten days back (reported earlier), the incursors would not go in for any confrontation armed or otherwise. The left sectarians we saw strew around leaflets that spoke of 'reprisals,' but would the villagers care, no, they would not. The kisans have tasted triumph and they were not going to give up any more before pointed guns and SLRs.
Elsewhere, in a 'secret' meeting where only member of the corporate media were allowed, Chhatradhar Mahato, the non-adivasi leader of the adivasi belt, and whose brother Sasadhar is a 'Maoist' 'area commander,' it was resolved that the police superintendent of the district must come to Lalgarh and apologise to the 'Maoists' for his alleged 'misdeeds,' (i.e., taking into custody of criminals and history sheeters).
Secondly all the 'demands,' that the 'Maoists' would place before the state administration, after the apology-episode, must then be adhered to by the officialdom.
Third, all this must be reported by the state government's officials before the Election Commission (EC).
Fourth, the chief electoral officer of Bengal must sit down, alone, with the 'Maoists' to 'work out the details of what would be the bandobast on the poll day of 30 April.
Fifth, until such is done to the last details, police would not be allowed entry and / or posting at Lalgarh-Sijua.
Sixth, even if the demands are acceded to in full by the state administration, selected companies of the CRPF would be allowed entry into the area on election day only and that, too, for 12 hours, and 'not a minute more,' including the time taken to strike camp.
Seventh, at the last resort, no Police either state or central would be allowed entry and it would be the members of the so-called 'civil society [those who had led the movement against the CPI (M) post- Nandigram and at Singur, towing the Trinamuli line] would be in 'sole charge' of the polling.
These impossible demands have been raise after the resistance under the leadership of the local committees of the CPI (M) in the villages of the area have started to solidify and fear no longer works. The day we arrived at the disturbed zone where many-a CPI (M) comrade have had to sacrifice their all, and their lives, and the safety of their families, there was huge procession of villagers that started at Nasipur in Lalgarh and ended at the small market place called the Sijua bazaar.
Kisans there told us that the meeting and the talk of negotiation were all bogus, for the 'Maoists' have had instructions from above to see that the polling was not held at all. They are afraid, afraid to be ground down during the polling. Why are the afraid if, as they and their backers-uppers in the media claim that the people are with them? This is the refrain that echoes in the hills and forests, as the 'Maoists' ponder and cower.
eom
PEOPLE THROW SIEGE AROUND
'MAOISTS' AT LALGARH-SIJUA
Kolkata, April 20: The bourgeois media has been in vaunted claim for weeks together now that there has been a siege of the entire Lalgarh-Sijua area in the western part of Midnapore and that neither the CPI (M) nor the state administration are able to approach the area under 'siege.' Well, we have news for them.
A visit to the Arma village cluster would change their perception – or good. The village cluster inhabited by the indigenous people or the adivasis have chosen to counter the so-called 'siege' with one of their own. How so, one might well ask. The answer has to be seen, perceived, and the belief system allowed taking over.
When the joint 'Maoist'-Trinamuli gangsters approached the villages with a demand for contributions in 'men and money,' or face the worst, the villagers came out as one, staves at the ready to face the glisten of the gun barrels, and quietly but firmly told off the raiders that they had start going back or empty handed or they it would be who face the worse. Do you or do you not see that we outnumber you by 100 to one, was the cry that went up from the villages. The 'braves' of the left sectarian brand had a word with their reactionary hirelings – the whole ensemble then fled, never to return again.
The entire cluster had not come up with any contribution from their solid ranks for these heinous murders. The women and children now recognise who the enemy is, and who is their friend. The unseen minder of the 'Maoists' who provide training in sophisticated guerrilla warfare in the Dalilpur jangal mahals have gone away time again empty handed—they were not able to recruit a single 'cadre' from the Aram village. At the last count when we paid a visit to the zone at night, we were met with comrades of the different local committees that now function both overtly and occasionally covertly in 50 of the 92 Gram Panchayats that the villages cover.
On Sunday afternoon, almost after sundown, the 'Maoists,' we saw, make another attempt at encroachment of the 'rebel' villages. They were politely but firmly refused entry. After what had happened at Lalgarh barely ten days back (reported earlier), the incursors would not go in for any confrontation armed or otherwise. The left sectarians we saw strew around leaflets that spoke of 'reprisals,' but would the villagers care, no, they would not. The kisans have tasted triumph and they were not going to give up any more before pointed guns and SLRs.
Elsewhere, in a 'secret' meeting where only member of the corporate media were allowed, Chhatradhar Mahato, the non-adivasi leader of the adivasi belt, and whose brother Sasadhar is a 'Maoist' 'area commander,' it was resolved that the police superintendent of the district must come to Lalgarh and apologise to the 'Maoists' for his alleged 'misdeeds,' (i.e., taking into custody of criminals and history sheeters).
Secondly all the 'demands,' that the 'Maoists' would place before the state administration, after the apology-episode, must then be adhered to by the officialdom.
Third, all this must be reported by the state government's officials before the Election Commission (EC).
Fourth, the chief electoral officer of Bengal must sit down, alone, with the 'Maoists' to 'work out the details of what would be the bandobast on the poll day of 30 April.
Fifth, until such is done to the last details, police would not be allowed entry and / or posting at Lalgarh-Sijua.
Sixth, even if the demands are acceded to in full by the state administration, selected companies of the CRPF would be allowed entry into the area on election day only and that, too, for 12 hours, and 'not a minute more,' including the time taken to strike camp.
Seventh, at the last resort, no Police either state or central would be allowed entry and it would be the members of the so-called 'civil society [those who had led the movement against the CPI (M) post- Nandigram and at Singur, towing the Trinamuli line] would be in 'sole charge' of the polling.
These impossible demands have been raise after the resistance under the leadership of the local committees of the CPI (M) in the villages of the area have started to solidify and fear no longer works. The day we arrived at the disturbed zone where many-a CPI (M) comrade have had to sacrifice their all, and their lives, and the safety of their families, there was huge procession of villagers that started at Nasipur in Lalgarh and ended at the small market place called the Sijua bazaar.
Kisans there told us that the meeting and the talk of negotiation were all bogus, for the 'Maoists' have had instructions from above to see that the polling was not held at all. They are afraid, afraid to be ground down during the polling. Why are the afraid if, as they and their backers-uppers in the media claim that the people are with them? This is the refrain that echoes in the hills and forests, as the 'Maoists' ponder and cower.
eom
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Bengal news
From B Prasant/INN
JYOTI BASU NAILS ADVANI'S 'COVERT'OUS REMARKS
Kolkata, March 31: Senior CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu rebutted on 30 March BJP supremo Lalkrishna Advani's remark to a news agency that he had met Jyoti Basu 'covertly' prior to the so-called 'rathayatra' that claimed the lives of hundreds across its bloody path. Jyoti Basu admitted to the meting quite freely and said that the meeting was overt rather than covert.
Jyoti Basu previously had a word with the CPI(M) Polit Bureau and with the then general secretary comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet before proceeding to meet Advani. The then Prime Minister V P Singh, too, had earlier prevailed upon Basu to speak to Advani towards dissuading the BJP leader from the 'rathayatra'.
In the exchanges that followed between Basu and Advani, Basu told the latter that the purported 'rathayatra' would create disharmony and even rioting. Advani would not listen to Basu's advice that he aborts the 'programme.'
Later, Basu also met A B Vajpayee and asked him to prevent the 'rathayatra' but nothing came out of this meeting, too. Basu added to say when the late PV Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister Basu along with comrade Surjeet had telephoned him to initiate measures so that the Babari Masjid was not pulled down. The late Rao promised to do 'something' about the issue but in practice did nothing.
Incidentally Jyoti Basu recalled that when as Prime Minister A B Vajpayee came to Kolkata and met Basu he asked the Bengal chief minister as to the reasons why he, Basu, called the BJP a party that was 'uncivilized and barbaric.' Basu had replied that he said this because BJP was engaged in orchestrating riots in Gujarat, killing members of the minority communities with impunity, and that it had pulled down the Babari Masjid, causing riots to break out. After this strong repartee, Vajpayee had held his silence.
Item 2
ATTACKS ON CPI(M) WORKERS GO ON; ONE KILLED IN BANKURA
Murderous assaults on CPI(M) workers go on in Bengal, especially in the laterite zone in the western part of the state abutting Bihar and Jharkhand. On 29 March, late in the evening, comrade Kanai Kumar, a humble woodworker of Arsha in Purulia was making his way back to his hutment along the looping road that went up and down the hillocks.
On one bend on the path, stood in ambush the killers, a mix of Pradesh Congress and Trinamul Congress goons-- all heavily armed with guns, pistols, knives, and adzes. They pounced on comrade Kanai, shot him, and then proceeded to kill him of numerous cuts and slashes from sharp weapons all over his body till he died screaming in pain.
A winding cortège accompanied his last remains to the local burning ghat for consignment to flames. Comrade Kanai had long been a target of the Pradesh Congress in particular for he had resisted all attempts by the thugs of that outfit to prevent the formation of the newly-elected Gram Sansad.
Elsewhere and not far away in Bankura, at a place called Jaipur, a large horde of Trinamul Congress hooligans attacked an election rally of the CPI (M), fired shots indiscriminately, and kidnapped the shot and wounded Sheikh Shahjahan, a dedicated CPI (M) worker. The CPI (M) activists gave chase, and they finally, literally, stumbled upon the prone Shahjahan who had in the meanwhile both his shins repeatedly pounded, broken, and then, in a gesture of in human cruelty, twisted out of shape.
Indeed, it was Shahjahan's screams that enabled the CPI(M) workers to spot generally the place where he had been thrown from a vehicle as the cowards made good their escape in the descending darkness of the night of 30 March. Removed to a hospital, Shahjahan fights for his very survival.
In the meanwhile, the Trinamul Congress candidate from the area has been known to call publicly for terror to be brought down on CPI(M) workers. Not too far away in Midnapore west at Lalgarh, 'Gour' of the CP(Maoist) has announced that police would not be allowed in the area during the poll days. 'Gour' has received vociferous support from the entire range of the right-wing opposition from the Pradesh Congress to the BJP to the Trinamul Congress.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Bengal
From B Prasant/INN
OPPOSITION SUBVERTS INTEGRITY, ENCOURAGES DIVISIVENESS
Kolkata, March 30: Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on election tour across a vast stretch of north Bengal was clear in pointing out that the opposition inBengal worked to organise, hearten, and applaud divisiveness of every kind including territorial separatism. It is the CPI(M) and the Left, Buddhadeb told the various gatherings he addressed between 28 and 31 March, which is ready to go in for sacrifices of every kind to ensure that Bengal remains integrated and a united entity.
The Trinamulis and the scions of Pradesh Congress, said Buddhadeb, were eager and willing to witness the prosperity and political flowering of such dangerous political devices as the call for 'greater' Coochbehar, for a separate 'Gorkhaland,' and for a 'free' state of Kamptapur, for a separate western Bengal centering around Lalgarh.
The separatist 'Gorkha Janamukti Morcha' (GJM) was ready to encroach upon the dooars and the terai with impunity for the sake of building up a separate Gorkhali entity that was conceptually and behaviourally a wrong notion from the first to the last of the premises they fatuously advanced. 'We,' said Buddhadeb 'have told the Dooars adivasi organisations that had become very angry at the GJM's move, that you should maintain calm and be of orderly conduct, for otherwise, the purpose of the GJM would have been served.' We are aware of the problems that the adivasis face and whether it was the dearth of Hindi-medium school or the issue of closed and sick chabagicha, the LF government would look into them for a fruitful but amicable solution.'
The CPI(M) and the LF stood for unity – of the plains and the hills, and of the plains people and the hills people in all their colourful existence. Buddhadeb appealed once again to the GJM leaders not to go in for separatism for that would not solve whatever anguish they nourished in the hearts-and-minds, and whatever was the sort of deprivation they might nurture.
'We are ready to provide the hill area with more administrative and financial powers for developmental purposes, but who would stand to gain if you go in for separatism? Has the carving away of Jharkhand from Bihar been of any help to the people of either of the two neighbouring states?' asked Buddhadeb.
Buddhadeb asked the Pradesh Congress leaders to come clean of they could on the issue of a separate hill district. The Congress speaks in one tone in the terai and dooars and in quire another in the hills. This was duplicity and the victims are the common people, especially the poor who become more and more confused and angry at being played as ducks-and-drakes.
Recalling the 1970s when the violent Naxalite movement sweptBengal and the 1980s when the Gorkhaland movement under the counter-progressive stewardship of the GNLF, shed the blood of the poor, the bourgeois parties had silently provided succour and encouragement to the politics of destruction. Those days would be allowed to come back and haunt the poor of the province again, asserted Buddhadeb firmly. In the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the electorate must vote for peace, for amity, for progress, for development.
Later fielding a plethora of questions, some mundane, others facetious, only a few that could be deemed having political content, Buddhadeb said that the prospects of a strong Third Front grew fast every day, every week. The BJP a vicious outfit that believed in religious fundamentalism of the physical kind (e.g., a young BJP leader's horrendous threats to non-Hindu communities, uttered brazenly in front of rolling TV cameras) was losing ground fast. Allies were dropping off the ship-ran-aground called the Congress. The resultant political vector clearly worked for the repository of popular trust in the secular-democratic Third Front with the Left and the CPI(M) playing the role of a catalyst.
Elsewhere in Darjeeling the LF's CPI(M) candidate for the seat Jibesh sarkar was heckled by the GJM but nonetheless, he also received a cheerful welcome from the masses of the hill station, and his campaign up in the hills was such a success that the Bengal CPI(M) would extend electioneering in such important htowns as Kurseong, and Kalimpong shortly, urban development minister Ashok Bhattacharyya, a long-time Party activist of Siliguri and Darjeeling assured us.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Second candidate list
From India News Network (INN)
New Delhi, March 21: We are herewith releasing the second list of candidates of the CPI(M) for the 15th Lok Sabha elections. The first list contained names of sixty seats and candidates. Sixteen more names are being announced today.
Second List of Lok Sabha Seats To Be Contested By The CPI(M) And Candidates
| Sr. | State | No. | Constituency | Candidate |
| Karnataka | 1 | Dakshin Kannada | B. Madhava* | |
| 1 | Kerala | 1 | Kasargode | P. Karunakaran |
| 2 | 2 | Kannur | K. K. Ragesh * | |
| 3 | 3 | Vadakara | P. Satheedevi (W) | |
| 4 | 4 | Kozhikode | Adv. Muhammed Riyaz * | |
| 5 | 5 | Malappuram | T. K. Hamza | |
| 6 | 6 | Palakkad | M. B. Rajesh* | |
| 7 | 7 | Alathoor (SC) | P. K. Biju * | |
| 8 | 8 | Chalakkudi | U. P. Joseph * | |
| 9 | 9 | Ernakulam | Sindhu Joy (W) * | |
| 10 | 10 | Kottayam | Suresh Kurup | |
| 11 | 11 | Alappuzha | Dr. K. S. Manoj | |
| 12 | 12 | Pathanamthitta | Ananthagopan * | |
| 13 | 13 | Kollam | P. Rajendran | |
| 14 | 14 | Attingal | A. Sampath | |
| 15 | Lakshadweep | 1 | Lakshadweep | Lookmanul Hakkim. M. K.* |
* new candidates
In the first list we had already announced that the CPI(M) will be putting up its candidate from Barpeta inAssam. The candidate is Durge Deka.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Lok Sabha Polls - An Alternative Emerges: Prakash Karat
The past one week has firmly established the fact that there is a viable non-Congress, non-BJP combination emerging to fight the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. What is popularly known as a third front became a reality when seven parties shared a common platform at the massive rally organised in Dobbspet, near Bangalore, on March 12. The leaders of the Janata Dal (Secular), the AIADMK, the Telugu Desam, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the CPI(M) and the CPI declared that they would work together to defeat the Congress and the BJP and to create a new alternative.
Three days later, on March 15, nine political parties met in New Delhi. Apart from the four Left parties, the TDP, the JD (S), the AIADMK, the TRS and the Biju Janata Dal discussed how to take forward the electoral understanding and seat sharing arrangements they had arrived at in various states. In a joint statement, they declared their resolve to work together to defeat the Congress and the BJP and to form an alternative government for the progress and welfare of the people. The meeting also discussed the policy issues that need to be addressed.
On the same day, the BSP president, Ms Mayawati, released her party's election appeal and called for the defeat of the Congress and the BJP and expressed her party's determination to work for a non-Congress, non-BJP government.
All these developments in the second week of March have dramatically confirmed what the CPI(M) has been maintaining: politics in India cannot be straitjacketed into a two-party system. Although the ruling classes of our country would like politics to revolve around a choice between two political parties, both of which represent their interests, this has proved impossible in practice. Both the major all-India bourgeois parties are unable to command a mass base and the support of the people in significant parts of the country. For instance, in the two major states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the Congress and the BJP together cannot claim to represent even one-third of the seats to the Lok Sabha. In state after state, either the Congress or the BJP represents a minority force.
This inability to achieve numbers that are anywhere near majorities in parliament has compelled them to look for allies. So, they have settled for projecting a two-front system as an alternative – a Congress-led combination and a BJP-led combination.
The emergence of a viable non-Congress, non-BJP combination has caused consternation in the Congress and the BJP camps. While the Congress called the third front as the “biggest mirage of Indian politics”, the BJP has sought to dismiss the third front as a “nautanki” (drama). The BJP has greater cause for worry because, unlike in 1999 and 2004, many of the secular regional parties are no more willing to be associated with the BJP. They are finding their place in the non-Congress, non-BJP camp. The latest partner to break with them is the BJD in Orissa.
As for the Congress party, it fielded its senior leader, Pranab Mukherjee, to attack the concept of a third front. He harped on the fact that the front has not set out any programme, or, vision for government forgetting that the Congress created its front – the UPA – only after the elections in 2004. It is also a strange argument considering that the UPA itself is not going with a common programme or manifesto to the elections. The Congress, the RJD, the NCP and the DMK are all bringing out separate manifestos. So why is Pranab Mukherjee concerned about a common programme for the parties of the third front? Why did not the Congress consider a joint programme with its elusive ally, the Samajwadi Party? He even made the extraordinary claim that the parties of the third front were not even fighting enough seats to get a majority in the House. This is, of course, utterly inaccurate. The Left alone is fighting 150 seats and if the parties with which they have seat sharing arrangements or election alliances are taken into account, then their number is more than 50 per cent of the seats in parliament. If the seats contested by the BSP are taken into account, then the combine is fighting far more seats than the Congress party.
A Congress spokesperson has also charged that the formation of the third front will help the communal forces by dividing the secular votes. The fact is that the emergence of the alliance of the Left and the secular regional parties has struck a body blow to the electoral ambitions of the BJP. The BJP has been left with not a single ally in states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Orissa. The propagation of a two-party system by the Congress only helps the BJP instead of weakening it.
Both the Congress and the BJP are on shaky ground when they termed the third front as an unstable and unviable alliance. The reality is that both the UPA and the NDA are not durable alliances and that their fragility has come to the fore in the recent period. The Congress, after its Working Committee meeting in January, declared that it has no national level alliance and that it is going in for state level alliances only. This has undermined the very basis of the UPA. In turn, it has freed the UPA allies to look for different electoral partners in various states. Some of the non-Congress partners of the UPA are signalling that alignments will change according to the post-poll situation. The NCP president Sharad Pawar has, unlike the Congress and the BJP, stated that the third front cannot be written off. He has further stated that his party is not a bonded labourer of anyone. As for the NDA, it suffered a major blow when the BJD decided to break with it. Even the Asom Gana Parishad, which has entered into a seat adjustment with the BJP, has declared that it is not part of the NDA.
Although the Congress seems to have gained confidence after seeing the disarray in the BJP and its alliance, it is unwilling to recognise what is happening to the people and the country. One single instance should illustrate this point. The Congress party and the government are happy to claim that inflation is going down steadily. The inflation rate of the Wholesale Price Index is now below 4 per cent. But the prices of food items have increased sharply. According to the Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs, there has been a big surge in the prices of food items such as rice, tur, onions, sugar and tea. The wholesale price food index registered 7.5 per cent inflation for the week ending February 28. This price rise at the retail level increased manifold. According to these figures, the price of rice in Delhi rose by 22 per cent between March 2008 and March 2009; sugar went up by 47 per cent, tur by 31 per cent and onion by a whopping 111 per cent.
While the government takes satisfaction in proclaiming that the growth rate has slowed down only slightly, the reality is that lakhs of jobs are being lost due to the global recession and the economic crisis.
The Congress rulers are ignoring the entire agrarian crisis, price rise, unemployment and the falling living standards of the people. This is going to cost them heavily.
When the time of reckoning comes, the people have the choice to reject both the Congress and the BJP, which has similar economic policies, and to look for an alternative. The Left parties have set out a full-fledged alternative policy platform. The CPI(M) is working to see that the parties that have rallied around the banner of a third front come together on a common platform for pro-people economic policies, a firm defence of secularism, strengthening federalism and for an independent foreign policy. Such a platform offers a clear alternative choice for the people. In the coming days, during the election campaign, these alternative policies will be presented before the people.
(March 18, 2009)
Three days later, on March 15, nine political parties met in New Delhi. Apart from the four Left parties, the TDP, the JD (S), the AIADMK, the TRS and the Biju Janata Dal discussed how to take forward the electoral understanding and seat sharing arrangements they had arrived at in various states. In a joint statement, they declared their resolve to work together to defeat the Congress and the BJP and to form an alternative government for the progress and welfare of the people. The meeting also discussed the policy issues that need to be addressed.
On the same day, the BSP president, Ms Mayawati, released her party's election appeal and called for the defeat of the Congress and the BJP and expressed her party's determination to work for a non-Congress, non-BJP government.
All these developments in the second week of March have dramatically confirmed what the CPI(M) has been maintaining: politics in India cannot be straitjacketed into a two-party system. Although the ruling classes of our country would like politics to revolve around a choice between two political parties, both of which represent their interests, this has proved impossible in practice. Both the major all-India bourgeois parties are unable to command a mass base and the support of the people in significant parts of the country. For instance, in the two major states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the Congress and the BJP together cannot claim to represent even one-third of the seats to the Lok Sabha. In state after state, either the Congress or the BJP represents a minority force.
This inability to achieve numbers that are anywhere near majorities in parliament has compelled them to look for allies. So, they have settled for projecting a two-front system as an alternative – a Congress-led combination and a BJP-led combination.
The emergence of a viable non-Congress, non-BJP combination has caused consternation in the Congress and the BJP camps. While the Congress called the third front as the “biggest mirage of Indian politics”, the BJP has sought to dismiss the third front as a “nautanki” (drama). The BJP has greater cause for worry because, unlike in 1999 and 2004, many of the secular regional parties are no more willing to be associated with the BJP. They are finding their place in the non-Congress, non-BJP camp. The latest partner to break with them is the BJD in Orissa.
As for the Congress party, it fielded its senior leader, Pranab Mukherjee, to attack the concept of a third front. He harped on the fact that the front has not set out any programme, or, vision for government forgetting that the Congress created its front – the UPA – only after the elections in 2004. It is also a strange argument considering that the UPA itself is not going with a common programme or manifesto to the elections. The Congress, the RJD, the NCP and the DMK are all bringing out separate manifestos. So why is Pranab Mukherjee concerned about a common programme for the parties of the third front? Why did not the Congress consider a joint programme with its elusive ally, the Samajwadi Party? He even made the extraordinary claim that the parties of the third front were not even fighting enough seats to get a majority in the House. This is, of course, utterly inaccurate. The Left alone is fighting 150 seats and if the parties with which they have seat sharing arrangements or election alliances are taken into account, then their number is more than 50 per cent of the seats in parliament. If the seats contested by the BSP are taken into account, then the combine is fighting far more seats than the Congress party.
A Congress spokesperson has also charged that the formation of the third front will help the communal forces by dividing the secular votes. The fact is that the emergence of the alliance of the Left and the secular regional parties has struck a body blow to the electoral ambitions of the BJP. The BJP has been left with not a single ally in states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Orissa. The propagation of a two-party system by the Congress only helps the BJP instead of weakening it.
Both the Congress and the BJP are on shaky ground when they termed the third front as an unstable and unviable alliance. The reality is that both the UPA and the NDA are not durable alliances and that their fragility has come to the fore in the recent period. The Congress, after its Working Committee meeting in January, declared that it has no national level alliance and that it is going in for state level alliances only. This has undermined the very basis of the UPA. In turn, it has freed the UPA allies to look for different electoral partners in various states. Some of the non-Congress partners of the UPA are signalling that alignments will change according to the post-poll situation. The NCP president Sharad Pawar has, unlike the Congress and the BJP, stated that the third front cannot be written off. He has further stated that his party is not a bonded labourer of anyone. As for the NDA, it suffered a major blow when the BJD decided to break with it. Even the Asom Gana Parishad, which has entered into a seat adjustment with the BJP, has declared that it is not part of the NDA.
Although the Congress seems to have gained confidence after seeing the disarray in the BJP and its alliance, it is unwilling to recognise what is happening to the people and the country. One single instance should illustrate this point. The Congress party and the government are happy to claim that inflation is going down steadily. The inflation rate of the Wholesale Price Index is now below 4 per cent. But the prices of food items have increased sharply. According to the Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs, there has been a big surge in the prices of food items such as rice, tur, onions, sugar and tea. The wholesale price food index registered 7.5 per cent inflation for the week ending February 28. This price rise at the retail level increased manifold. According to these figures, the price of rice in Delhi rose by 22 per cent between March 2008 and March 2009; sugar went up by 47 per cent, tur by 31 per cent and onion by a whopping 111 per cent.
While the government takes satisfaction in proclaiming that the growth rate has slowed down only slightly, the reality is that lakhs of jobs are being lost due to the global recession and the economic crisis.
The Congress rulers are ignoring the entire agrarian crisis, price rise, unemployment and the falling living standards of the people. This is going to cost them heavily.
When the time of reckoning comes, the people have the choice to reject both the Congress and the BJP, which has similar economic policies, and to look for an alternative. The Left parties have set out a full-fledged alternative policy platform. The CPI(M) is working to see that the parties that have rallied around the banner of a third front come together on a common platform for pro-people economic policies, a firm defence of secularism, strengthening federalism and for an independent foreign policy. Such a platform offers a clear alternative choice for the people. In the coming days, during the election campaign, these alternative policies will be presented before the people.
(March 18, 2009)
Election campaign website launched
From India News Network (INN)
* *
*CPI(M) ELECTION CAMPAIGN WEBSITE LAUNCHED*
New Delhi, March 19: Launching the election campaign website of the CPI(M) on March 18, 2009, for the Lok Sabha Elections, 2009, Comrade Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau Member of the Party said: "The Communist Party of India (Marxist) is launching vote.cpim.org today, which will be a site dedicated to our campaign for the Lok Sabha Elections, 2009.
This website is designed entirely using free software platform, Drupal. CPI(M) has always been committed to promote Free Software, and the present exercise testifies to our continued effort towards that objective.
The design of the site has also been done free of cost, on a voluntary basis. Other parties like the BJP spend enormous amount of money for their campaign on the Internet (lkadvani.in). One wonders if the Election Commission is keeping a tab on that expenditure.
Our friends and wellwishers have helped us in designing and hosting this site. In particular, we thank Comrades Srinivasan Ramani from Mumbai; Unnikrishnan, Kiran Chandra and Bhuvan from Hyderabad; Sudipto Nag from Kolkata and Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya from Kochi for their special efforts. The Free Software team and the Research Unit of the CPI(M) have also contributed.
Today, the Internet has emerged as an open ended medium which enables us to reach out to a large number of our people, particularly the youth. Through this campaign over the internet, we hope to reach out to them with our views concerning issues in the forthcoming Lok Sabha Elections. Through the website we will be able to carry our message across in an undistorted manner, free from the control/censorship and biases of the corporate media.
Our website has several interactive features. Visitors can give suggestions, ask questions and even join our campaign through the site. All serious queries and suggestions would be responded within 24 hours.
We would appeal to the members and sympathisers of our Party across the country to join the campaign group in our website and help us in making our
initiative a success."
Responding to questions from the media, Sitaram Yechury emphasized that the CPI(M) has always believed in using technological advances to take forward the issues of the people and promote meaninful public debates. The fact that this is done through the website which will be hosted and maintained completely free of cost makes the campaign of the CPI(M) distinct from other political parties. Sitaram Yechury appealed to the youth, the predominant users of the internet, to recognize that their future is shaped by the politics of the day and therefore, it is important for them to participate and engage with it.
eom
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Bengal two party workers killed
From B Prasant/INN
TRINAMULIS KILL A FISHERMAN AT GANGARAMPU
RKolkata, March 18: They took advantage of the unarmed status of the thin-bodies fishing folk. They were bent on taking control over the local ponds. These ponds were the only source of livelihood for the dozens of families of impoverished villagers—all CPI(M) sympathisers for long -- at the village called Patiram. The attackers—Trinamulis and Pradesh Congress goons of ill-repute -- took out a banner of /mahajot/, and launched a murderous attack on the fishing folk in the afternoon of 17 March.
The latter put up a resistance of sorts -- but when bare hands try to confront heavily armed professional goons, the results are far foregone. Comrade Ansar Ali, who retreated before the fierceness of the attack was chased down, pulled out from his shanty and his head cleaved apart with a large sickle. Sharp weapons were used on comrades Luxman Rai, Moti-ud din Mian, and Rezzak Ali – all in their mid-twenties. They are battling for life at various North Bengal hospitals.
The water bodies, however, could not be taken over. Cowards flee at the end of the day when they find /people/ standing tall in defence of their livelihood.
*ANOTHER DECOMPOSED BODY FOUND AT NANDIGRAM*
* *
The putrefied body of comrade Himadri Patra, a staunch CPI(M) supporter, abducted by the Trinamuli-Maoist combination some days back at Khejuri 2, was found early in the morning of 17 March. His remains, it was clear that he had been tortured to a very painful end, was found half-buried at a char land at a lonely and remote place called Nichaksaba. A long procession of villagers took to the fields to protest rousingly against the murder.
We were told that another CPI(M) worker and a branch secretary, Sheikh Hatem Ali recently managed to escape the confines within which the Trinamuli-Maoists had put him in and had him tortured in captivity, for all of a week. District committee member of Midnapore east unit of the CPI(M) Himangsu Das has said that an ambience of terror was being built up, slowly yet planfully, by the /mahajot/ as the Lok Sabha elections approached, with help from the Maoists in the area. Popular resistance too was growing bigger and stouter led by the CPI(M) and the LF constituent parties.
eom
TRINAMULIS KILL A FISHERMAN AT GANGARAMPU
RKolkata, March 18: They took advantage of the unarmed status of the thin-bodies fishing folk. They were bent on taking control over the local ponds. These ponds were the only source of livelihood for the dozens of families of impoverished villagers—all CPI(M) sympathisers for long -- at the village called Patiram. The attackers—Trinamulis and Pradesh Congress goons of ill-repute -- took out a banner of /mahajot/, and launched a murderous attack on the fishing folk in the afternoon of 17 March.
The latter put up a resistance of sorts -- but when bare hands try to confront heavily armed professional goons, the results are far foregone. Comrade Ansar Ali, who retreated before the fierceness of the attack was chased down, pulled out from his shanty and his head cleaved apart with a large sickle. Sharp weapons were used on comrades Luxman Rai, Moti-ud din Mian, and Rezzak Ali – all in their mid-twenties. They are battling for life at various North Bengal hospitals.
The water bodies, however, could not be taken over. Cowards flee at the end of the day when they find /people/ standing tall in defence of their livelihood.
*ANOTHER DECOMPOSED BODY FOUND AT NANDIGRAM*
* *
The putrefied body of comrade Himadri Patra, a staunch CPI(M) supporter, abducted by the Trinamuli-Maoist combination some days back at Khejuri 2, was found early in the morning of 17 March. His remains, it was clear that he had been tortured to a very painful end, was found half-buried at a char land at a lonely and remote place called Nichaksaba. A long procession of villagers took to the fields to protest rousingly against the murder.
We were told that another CPI(M) worker and a branch secretary, Sheikh Hatem Ali recently managed to escape the confines within which the Trinamuli-Maoists had put him in and had him tortured in captivity, for all of a week. District committee member of Midnapore east unit of the CPI(M) Himangsu Das has said that an ambience of terror was being built up, slowly yet planfully, by the /mahajot/ as the Lok Sabha elections approached, with help from the Maoists in the area. Popular resistance too was growing bigger and stouter led by the CPI(M) and the LF constituent parties.
eom
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