People's Democracy

Lok Morcha Gears Up

For Protest Actions

MEETING at CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet’s residence on October 5, leaders of the Lok Morcha have decided to run a spirited campaign against the BJP-led NDA government’s anti-people and anti-national policies. In coming days, they will be concentrating on Uttar Pradesh in particular, where assembly elections are due very soon.

Apart from Surjeet, others to attend the meeting included the Lok Morcha chairman Jyoti Basu, its convenor Mulayam Singh Yadav, former prime ministers V P Singh and H D Deve Gowda, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan, Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), D Raja (CPI), Amar Singh (Samajwadi Party), Debbrata Biswas (Forward Bloc) and Abani Roy (Revolutionary Socialist Party).

The Lok Morcha leaders accused the BJP-led government of "trying to cover up its miserable performance on the economic front" and also to impose further burdens on the people in the name of fighting against global terrorism following the terrorist attacks in the US. The Morcha warned the government not only against any move to impose burdens on the people but also against participating in the US war against Afghanistan in any way.

The meeting demanded immediate dissolution of the UP assembly and fresh assembly elections there. They accused that the law and order situation has totally collapsed in the state and the state capital has itself become a den of mafia groups and criminals who enjoy the patronage of the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues. A serious aspect of the situation is that workers of the Samajwadi Party are being done to death, arrested and implicated in false cases and harassed in many other ways. The reason is simple: it is the Samajwadi Party, a constituent of the Lok Morcha, that is posing the biggest challenge to the BJP in the state. The Lok Morcha leaders demanded an immediate end to the situation.

It will be noted here that the last assembly elections in UP had taken place in September-October 1996 and the present assembly was constituted in mid-October 1996. Also, all the MLAs had started getting their salaries and allowances from that time onward. Therefore, logically and constitutionally, fresh elections to the UP assembly should have been held in September this year. But the BJP-led government is mortally afraid of facing the electorate. Not only has the state government made the life of the people of UP a living hell; it also consists of about six dozen defectors from other parties, who were all made ministers. Many of them are dreaded criminals, who have been utilising their governmental positions to further their illegal businesses. As the new state of Uttaranchal was carved out of Uttar Pradesh only in November last year, assembly polls in Uttaranchal too should have been held in September 2001 at the most.

But the mortally afraid BJP government of Uttar Pradesh has been advancing the spurious plea that the first government in the state was formed only in March 1997 and therefore the assembly elections cannot be held before February 2002.

It was in protest against this constitutional impropriety that all the MLAs of the Samajwadi Party, CPI(M) and CPI have already tendered their resignations from the assembly.

Leaders of the Lok Morcha also warned against the moves of the BJP-led central government that are aimed at placating the US imperialists and the Bush administration. They pointed out that the central government’s moves threaten to internationalise the issue of Kashmir. They are thus in violation of the earlier consensual positions of the whole country that Kashmir is an integral part of India and that no third party should be allowed in the Indo-Pak disputes which these two countries should try to solve through peaceful bilateral negotiations under the provisions of the Shimla agreement of August 1972. Hence the Morcha leaders took strong exceptions to Mr Vajpayee writing a letter to President George W Bush, saying it amounted to seeking US intervention in Kashmir.

The Lok Morcha parties had earlier given a call to organise a rally in the national capital on November 6, against the Doha round of WTO ministerial talks. Now, however, the convening of the Doha talks is itself in doubt because of the US war against Afghanistan.