Strengthen Party to Meet the Developing Objective Conditions of Peoples' Movements : Call at Party Conferences in West Bengal

 

'Objective conditions of building peoples' movements are budding in West Bengal. The task is to build up the subjective factor by strengthening Party's relationship with the people'. This was the main thrust of district conferences of CPI(M) in West Bengal.

Till the first week of January, 2012, conferences in 11districts out of 19 have been concluded. The first was in South Dinajpur, followed by Darjeeling, North Dinajpur, Maldaha, Nadia, Murshidabad, Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Purulia and Kolkata. These conferences, being held in a new political situation, were exercises in detailed introspection of Party's activities, its relationship with the people, the mistakes and deficiencies in implementing political programme. Everywhere the self critical attitude prevailed and urgent need to reorient Party's activities according to the needs of the situation was emphasized. At the same time, the experiences of seven months of TMC Government were summarized. It was noted that the initial euphoria of "change" was gradually giving in to discontent and dissatisfaction among the people. This was particularly evident in rural areas where the peasantry was facing serious problem of distress sale of major crops like paddy, jute and potato. A feeling of disgruntlement was also evident in educational institutions where whims of the ruling party have created a reign of anarchy. The working people were facing hardship from policies of the new Government. The necessity to strengthen bond with people to give voice to these displeasures was the call of the day.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee underlined the task while inaugurating the Kolkata district conference. He said, 'the objective conditions of a change in adverse situation is gradually coming into fore in international and national scenario. The votaries of capitalism and market economy are now in deep trouble. After the demise of USSR, it was told that capitalism had no alternative. But now that same capitalism is reeling under crisis. UPA Government, pursuing neo liberal policies has contributed in aggravating the problems of poverty, hunger and illiteracy. It has also invited new type of corruption. The inequality is accentuating thereby creating conditions for intensification of contradictions. UPA Government will surely become alienated from the people". Explaining the situation in West Bengal Bhattacharjee said, "Peoples' experience in last seven months has led them gradually to the path of protest in different spheres. It is true that there was a severe shift of political balance of forces in the state. A large section of people has shifted from the camp of the Lefts. The time has come when the Lefts have to win over the people again. The subjective condition of organizing bigger protests is to build up the Party, rectifying the mistakes. The Communist Party must build itself in the manner in which people want to see them. It will only be possible if the Party workers work incessantly among the people and raise their political consciousness.''

Biman Basu, while intervening in the discussion in Purulia and Bankura, has emphasized the need to revitalize Party organizations at all levels with the aim of mobilizing people in broader movement. "Thousands of Party workers have been attacked, rendered homeless and more than 50 have been killed in last seven months, but they have not left the Party", asserted Basu.

Peasants Display Anger Through Strike in West Bengal

In the backdrop of worsening plight of peasants in West Bengal, with an apathetic Government for last seven months, rural Bengal witnessed a massive protest in the form of an agriculture strike on 4th January. In the first statewide action of this kind, four Left peasant organisations called for stoppage of all agricultural activities and functioning of village panchayats across the State. The peasants, facing severe crisis due to declining prices of their produces, responded to the call with enthusiasm. All activities, relating to agriculture virtually came to standstill in 18 districts. The agricultural workers, whose job is already threatened, also joined in force. Instead of farming, rural Bengal saw rallies, blockades and demonstrations throughout Wednesday.

Last seven months of “change” in West Bengal have brought disastrous consequences for the peasants. The agricultural production witnessed a huge jump during Left Front Government and along with the support from the State Government and panchayats the lives of the farmers and share croppers brightened. All those successes have been seriously jeopardized by wrong policies and inaction by the TMC Government. The peasants, burdened under price rise and black marketing of fertilizers and other inputs failed to get remunerative prices of their products. Paddy, jute and potato growers were hit hardest. A spate of farmers’ suicides has taken place in agriculturally rich districts like Burdwan. The peasants’ discontent has been expressed through the unprecedented strike in rural areas.

AIKS (Harekrishna Konar Bhaban) state president Madan Ghosh has termed the success of the strike ‘beyond expectation’. The peasants’ protest has come also in the backdrop of reign of terror in many districts and a silent terror in almost every part of the state. The peasants defied the fear and marched in rallies in places. CITU had called upon the rural unorganized working people to join the peasants in strike. In many districts CITU brought out rallies in support of the strike.

Ghosh warned that the peasants would be forced to continue struggles if the State Government failed in their duties. “The Centre has withdrawn subsidy on fertiliser. They are not considering the plight of the farmers while determining the support price for paddy and other agricultural products. In our state more than 12 farmers have committed suicide as they failed to repay the loans they had obtained from money lenders at higher rate of interests. The State Government is not procuring paddy directly from the farmers by paying them the support price fixed by the Centre. We cannot allow the State Government to ignore the farmers and we will support the General strike called by trade unions on February 28," Ghosh said on Wednesday.

He also came down heavily on the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for her Government's failure to procure paddy from the farmers by giving them the minimum support price fixed up by the Centre. "The State Government has procured just 2 lakh metric tonnes of rice against their target of collecting 20 lakh metric tonnes. Naturally, the farmers are in distress and not in a position to sell their product. Never in the Left Front regime, had such a pathetic situation occurred in our state," complained Ghosh.

CPI - CPIM announces candidates for Punjab elections

CPIM State Secretary Com. Charan Singh Vridhi and State committe member (Amritasar Central Candidate ) Com. Vijay Mishra during the announcement of candidates

In the forthcoming elections to the Punjab Assembly, CPI, CPI(M) and the People's Party of Punjab led by Manpreet Singh Badal and the Akali Dal (Longowal) led by Surjit Singh Barnala have formed a front. The CPI is fighting 18 seats and CPIM will be contesting 9 seats in Punjab out of the 140 seats. The first list of 41 candidates announced by morcha chairman and People's Party of Punjab (PPP) chief Manpreet Singh Badal outside Jallianwala Bagh Martyrs memorial. Present on the occasion were CPI central executive committee member Dr Joginder Dayal and state secretariat member Harbhajan Singh, CPM state secretary Charan Singh Virdi and SAD (Longowal) Majha zone convener Pradeep Singh Walia.

CPIM Candidates and Constituency : Raghunath Singh (Garhshankar) Vijay Mishra (Amritsar central) Davinderjit Dhillon (Patti) Gurdial Singh Dhar (Anandpur Sahib) and Parshotam Lal Bilga (Phillaur) (SC).

CPI candidates and Constituency: Amarjit Singh Ansal (Amritsar west) Baldev Singh (Amritsar east) Balwinder Singh (Majitha) Lovleen Kaur Chahal (Sujjanpur) Subash Kaire (Dinanagar) (reserved).

Left parties - UKD(P) forms alliance in Uttarakand polls

CPIM, CPI and The Uttarakhand Kranti Dal (Panwar) headed by Trivendra Singh Panwar , announced the formation of a joint regional front for contesting the coming Assembly elections. It also released its first list of 12 candidates on Monday.

Addressing the media at a joint Press conference in Dehradun, Panwar said that the party had decided to join forces with the Left parties in order to strengthen its chances of preventing the Congress and the BJP from forming the next State Government. Announcing the formation of a joint regional front in the presence of CPI(M) State secretary Vijay Rawat and CPI National Council member Samar Bhandari, Panwar said that the Congress and the BJP failed to facilitate development and had instead caused deterioration of Uttarakhand during the 11 years since it was formed. The UKD-P and Left parties will now focus their efforts on preventing either of these two national parties from forming the next Government in Uttarakhand, Panwar said.

A first list of 17 candidates were announce during the function of which 13 seats are allocated to UKD (P) and the rest 4 seats are allocated to left parties. Com. Dinesh will contest from Gangothri and Com Anant Sing rana will contest from Badrinath as candidates of CPI. Com. Siva prasad will contest from Sahaspur constituency and Com. Rajpal will contest from sharali as candidates of CPIM.

CPIM Rajasthan State Conference

Communist Party of India Marxist Rajasthan State Conference ahead of the 20th Party Congress to be held at Kozhikode in April 2012 was held at Ringus in Sikar from 27th Decemeber to 30th December. The Congress began with a huge rally in Ramlila maidan in Ringus which gave a clear picture of the increasing strength of the party in the State. The important think to note is the huge participation of women and children in the rally despite of the  severe climate conditions. One interesting fact is that the participation in the rally was more than the total turnout during L K Adwani's recently held meeting as part of his rath yathra. The Rally was inaugurated by Com. Prakash Karat. He called upon the people to forge a Third front against the Congress and BJP in the state. CPIM Central Secreteriate member Com. Hannan Mullah, State Secretary Com. Vasudev Sharma, CC member and MLA com. Amra Ram spoke on the ocassion.

Later the delegate session was also inaugurated by Com. Prakash Karat. State Secretary Com. Vasudev Sharma placed the Organisational - Political report for discussion. 216 Delegates were present in the session. On the final day of the conference 31 member State committe with two new faces were elected. The Committe elected Com. Amara Ram, Hariram Chouhan, Ravindra Sukla, Hetram Beniwal, Falchand, Dhulichand, Prembharathi, Sumitra, Rameshwar Varma as the State Secreteriate and re elected Com. Vasudev Varma as the State Secretary.  

The State conference also decided to carryforward the struggle for water from Indira Canal and decided to hold a mass rally in February at Ganganagar raising this issue. 

CPIM Uttar Pradesh State Conference

Communist Party of India Marxist, Uttar Pradesh State Conference ahead of the 20th Party Congress was held at Kanpur from December 23 to 25 . The Conference started with the unfurling of Red Flag by veteran Freedom Fighter  Capt. Lakshmi. 

Com Prakash Karat inaugurated the conference. CPIM P B member S Ramachandran Pillai, CC members Com. Jogindar Sharma, Subhashini ali were present on the dais. 252 delegates were present in the conference. 

Com. S P Kashyap, state secretary presented the Political Organisational report. Various resolutions regarding Price rice, Caste discrimination, corruption were adopted by the conference. The conference also elected a 30 member state committee, 11 member state secreteriat and Com. S P Kashyap was re elected the state secretary. 10 delegates for the Party congress was also elected. 

The Two day conference has identified 16 seats to field its candidates in the UttarPradesh assembly elections to be held recently. Three or four more seats could be added toit in days to come. It was also decided that all left parties would unite to form the Left Front to challenge Congress, BSP, BJP and SP parties.

 

On the concluding day of the conference a public meeting was organised in Kanpur which was inaugurated by Com. Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the party. Party central committee member Com. Subhashini Ali, Party state secretary Com. S P Kashyap also spoke on the ocassion.

CPIM Malappuram District Conference

CPIM Malappuram District conference was held from 25 to 28 December at Manjeri. The conference was inaugurated by Com. Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, PB member CPIM. Inaugurating the meeting com. Balakrishnan said the party had failed to make a deep influence among the Muslim and Christian communities. He said although the minority communities had made financial achievements, a strong sense of ‘minoritism' was haunting them.Religious leadership, the CPI(M) leader said, had always been with the rich. The affluent among the minorities were making gains in the name of the community, he said.

Com Balakrishnan said the Indian Union Muslim League had made gains in the last elections by successfully getting the support of most groups of the Muslim community. He said the United Democratic Front had garnered only one lakh more votes than the Left Democratic Front in the last Assembly elections. It was the advantage of 3.5 lakh votes the UDF got in Malappuram district which turned it decisive for both fronts.

Senior leaders such as T. Sivadasa Menon, Paloli Mohammed Kutty, A. Vijayaraghavan, E.P. Jayarajan, P.K. Sreemathy, A.K. Balan, T.K. Hamza, P. Sreeramakrishnan, V. Sasikumar, P.K. Sainaba, and E.N. Mohandas were among those who were on the dais.

Com Ummer Master placed the Organisational and Political report at the conference on which discussions were held for 2 days.

The conference has chosen P.P. Vasudevan as the party's district secretary. He was elected unanimously on the third day of the party district conference Mr. Vasudevan, 68, hails from Perinthalmanna and is now the party's State Control Commission chairman and district secretariat member. Mr. Vasudevan came to public life through the youth movement of the party. He became a member of the CPI(M) in 1975. He has worked as Perinthalmanna area secretary of the party, district committee member, and district secretariat member. Mr. Vasudevan has been chairman of the Perinthalmanna Cooperative Urban Bank since 1980. He is also chairman of the Federation of Cooperative Urban Banks, executive director of E.M.S. Cooperative Hospital, and honorary secretary of the E.M.S. Memorial Charitable Trust.

The conference concluded with a huge rally and March by 25000 strong red volunteers.

CPIM Jammu Regional Conference

The 7th Regional Conference of CPI(M) J&K unit held at Miran Sahab, Jammu on Monday 27th December, elected a new Regional Committee and the secretary, after day long deliberations and voting. While 12 out of 15 members of the committee were elected directly by 150 delegates coming from all over the region, three members would be elected by the committee itself. Sham Prasad Kesar was unanimously elected as the regional secretary for the second term.

 

Com. Sham Prasad Kesar

Earlier Sham Prasad Kesar presented the secretary’s report which was discussed at length and adopted with a few amendments. It was pointed out that the problems of rice growers of Jammu region should be included in the report. Since the border area of Jammu produces world famous Basmati rice, the farmers have to be encouraged by suitable incentives. The report stressed on the unity of the state, devolution of powers and special attention to the areas here to neglected. The demand to open the Suchetgarh-Sialkote (Pakistan) road and launching of trade through this route found a prominent place in the report. Safeguarding of human rights and withdrawal of AFSPA and PSA was highlighted in the report with special reference to Kashmir Valley. Government was asked to fulfill its much publicized promise of zero tolerance towards human rights violations. Improvement of living conditions of the Kashmiri migrants and their safe return to the valley was also raised in the report. Handing over of NPHC Power Projects to the State and construction of new projects on Chenab and its tributaries was demanded for the growth of Industry and generation of employment. Full support was extended to the CITU in their ongoing struggle against exploitation of employees, especially Anganwadi Workers, ASHAs, Midday Meal Workers, ReTs, Daily Wagers and Casual Labourers.

 

The conference adopted six resolutions regarding addressing of specific problems of farmers, revision of new pension scheme, revival of public sector undertakings, eradication of corruption, control of rising prices and safeguarding of trade union rights. The regional Conference elected 31 delegates for the forthcoming state Conference of the party.
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CPIM 20th Party Congress Reception Committee office inaugurated

Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member S. Ramachandran Pillai inaugurated the reception committee office for the upcoming party congress on the Bank Road here on Tuesday.

On the occasion, he said that the party congress scheduled to be held in the city from April 4 to 9 would be a significant one discussing contemporary global and national issues. The deliberations would be held at the ideological level. He said he could not disclose the details of the draft of ideological and political resolutions at this stage. The Central Committee (CC) had once discussed the draft of the ideological resolution. Now final touches were being made. The CC would meet again in Kolkata next month in this regard.

The ideological and political resolutions would be published by January 23 to be discussed at all levels of the party. Even the detractors of the party could freely discuss these things. Further, the draft would be deliberated at the party congress.

Only at important junctures ideological resolutions are discussed. The 14th Party Congress had then discussed the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and socialism in East European countries in 1992, Mr. Pillai said. He said that the collapse of the Soviet Union had given critics to vehemently come out against communism and socialism. Even today such tendencies persisted after capitalistic-driven economies failed to deliver.

The collapse of insurance companies and banking sector, rise in unemployment and poverty and the yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots revealed that capitalism had failed. However, capitalistic countries continued to unleash their powers on smaller nations, he said.

Now the ongoing protests witnessed in Wall Street had spread to other cities in the United States. The protest of people had brought in a new political dimension in many Latin American countries. Progressive democratic communist governments began to replace corrupt capitalistic regimes. In India, he said, the Left parties had once tied up with regional parties for a third alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. However, these regional parties took an opportunistic stand derailing the concept of a third alternative.

The support given by the Left parties to the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre from 2004 to 2008 had given a wider acceptance to the Congress. It also bolstered the secular image of the Congress among the minorities, he said.

CPIM State Committee member and Reception Committee Treasurer Com. Elamaram Kareem Presided over the Function. State Committee members M K Kelappan, famous novelist P Valsala, Kozhikode mayor Com. M K Premajam participated in the inaugural ceremony. Reception committee secretary Com. T P Ramakrishnan welcomed the audience. 

(Courtesy The hindu)

CPIM Himachal Pradesh State Conference

CPIM Himachal Pradesh State Conference was held in Mandi from 23 to 25th December 2011.

A massive rally was held in Mandi on the eve of its 14th State Conference on 24th December.

CPIM Central Committee member Com A. Vijayraghvan addressed the rally and infused hope in the cadres to become a third viable alternative in the State, so far ruled either by the BJP or the Congress. Scores of workers, youth, peasants, women and students participated in it.

Party State Secretary Rakesh Singha also blamed both the ruling parties for fuelling corruption and selling out the interests of the poor in the State to major corporate groups outside. He said the parties had merely become facilitators for the rich companies pursuing neo liberal policies.

After the rally the delegate session began and State Secretary com. Rakesh Sinha placed the Political - Organisational report. While presenting the political report, Mr. Singha revealed the challenges being faced by the workers, peasants and middle-level government and private employees in the State. The BJP and the Congress were both signatories to the memorandum of understanding and had brought the Fiscal Responsibility Budgetary Management Act, which had led to a complete moratorium on government jobs in the State, he said. Contractual employment was introduced and more than 40,000 posts were scrapped by the successive governments, he said, adding that the salaries and pensions of the employees were further squeezed. The conference also criticised privatisation of the all important education, health and transport sectors.

On Sunday the 25th of December the conference elected a 25-member State Committee with a seven-member State Secretariat and Rakesh Singha as its new State secretary. Onkar Shad, Kashmir Singh, Tikender Panwar, Kuldeep Tanwar, Khushal Bhardwaj and Prem Gautam got elected as the Secretariat members on the third day of its State Conference in Mandi. The State party would also send its five senior members to attend the 20th National Party Congress in Kozhikode in Kerala in April 2012, said a party spokesman.

The conference pledged to become a third alternative for the people in the State to the ruling BJP and Congress who have failed to address the issues of the poor in the hill State. The left party would now muster support from all progressive forces including political parties and individuals who are opposed to both the BJP and Congress.

The CPI(M) will also launch a struggle against the failure of the State Government to check the attacks on the livelihood of the people.