GUJARAT

Protest Mounts Against Modi Regime

SEVERAL hundreds of the CPI(M) activists gathered at Prarthna Samaj building in Ahmedabad, August 7, for offering satyagraha, as per the CPI(M) state committee’s decision of July 19. While red flags fluttered all over the area, the presence of a good number of women attracted attention. Students, youth, workers and peasants also participated.

The issues the satyagraha sought to protest, included the heavy price hike of essential consumption items, crushing power tariff hike, even for agriculture, steep hikes in fees for school and college education, the home department’s help to the murderers in the Best Bakery case, and the corruption that today pervades the whole administration in the state. The satyagrahis also demanded a probe into the allegation the former home minister Haren Pandya’s father who has charged that chief minister Narendra Modi had a hand in Pandya’s murder. Another demand was that there must be increased concession for students in the state roadways buses.

Though the programme was chalked out by the CPI(M) state unit, later the state unit of the CPI also decided to join it.

Led by CPI(M) state secretary Arun Mehta and CPI state secretary A N Shaikh, the satyagrahis first went to the Maha Gujarat Shaheed Khambi (martyrs column), paid floral tributes to the martyrs, and then proceeded towards the state government’s office complex situated in a multi-storeyed building.

The big rally after the satyagrahis reached the Lal Darwaza blocked the whole area. When the callous Gujarat police tried to prevent the rally and mute the satyagrahis’ protest by force, it led to a clash between the police and the satyagrahis that jammed the traffic for two hours.

The number of those who came to court arrest was so big that the policemen found they did not have enough number of buses to carry all the satyagrahis. Finally, the police arrested only 527 satyagrahis, including 87 women.

While the CPI(M) activists came from several districts to offer satyagraha, the sad thing was that the CPI could register only token presence because of the delay in deciding about joining the action.

The rally announced that the programme to press for removal of Narendra Modi would continue.

This CPI(M)-CPI satyagraha programme was the biggest staged by any opposition party in the post-carnage Gujarat so far.

KISAN SABHA PROTEST

The state units of the CPI(M) and the NCP staged a big kisan rally in Upleta, August 5. More than two thousand peasants attended the rally despite heavy downpour.

The rally was organised to register protest against the heavy burdens the state government has heaped upon the Gujarat peasantry, while showering crores of rupees in concessions upon the multi-millionaires.

Speakers at the rally marshalled a lot of factual material to substantiate their charge that the state BJP government was thoroughly anti-peasant.

Earlier, on July 31, a large number of peasants gheraoed the BJP MLA from Upleta, at his residence, and demanded his resignation. The charge was that he was a vocal supporter of the Modi government’s measures that are harming the peasantry.

The call for the action was given by the state unit of the All India Kisan Sabha in protest against the steep power tariff hike, irregular supply of power and the stipulation that peasants can use power for agricultural operations only at night time. The increasing cuts in agricultural subsidies and the central government’s move to allow indiscriminate imports of agricultural produce were also among the issues the Kisan Sabha action protested against.

The gherao of Upleta BJP MLA was part of a statewide call of the Kisan Sabha against the policies that are ruining the peasantry in the state.

As a part of the same protest call, the district collectorate of Sabarkantha also witnessed a big rally on July 31. Singing, dancing and shouting slogans, a large number of kisans came for the rally from Khedbrahma, Vijaynagar, Meghraj, Idar, Himmatnagar, and other places --- in jeeps and tempos, on tractors, and by other means. They were demanding, among other things, regular power supply for 16 hours everyday for agriculture.

The police arrested 206 protestors here.

The state unit of the Kisan Sabha also extended support to the CPI(M)’s call for a fortnight long all-India campaign from August 16 to 31, and decided to join it in full strength.