People's Democracy

FEROZABAD

Huge Workers� Meet For CPI(M) Nominee

THE Ferozabad parliamentary constituency of Uttar Pradesh witnessed a huge workers� meeting in the Gandhi Park, on April 7, in support of Smt Rajjo Devi, the CPI(M)�s candidate here. Puttu Singh Rathode presided over the meeting while Advocate Naval Singh conducted the proceedings.

Addressing the gathering, Central Committee member and CITU secretary Tapan Sen, MP, said the secular and democratic camp is fast emerging as a force at the national level while both the UPA and NDA are increasingly disintegrating. He expressed his confidence that after the polls the third front would form a government at the centre, and that it would pursue the pro-people policies and programmes in place of those the Congress and the BJP have so far been following. This is in fact an essential requisite of the country�s development.

Sen pointed out that the bourgeois landlord parties resort to casteist, communal and other divisive slogans in order to get votes but do not care about the problems facing the people and about how to solve them. But Smt Rajjo Devi has been constantly fighting for the workers and other toiling people of Ferozabad, and the struggle continues despite all the odds in the way. Approximately three lakh workers and peasants are directly engaged in the bangles industry and glassworks in the district, whom the CPI(M) have been all through seeking to organise in struggles. He therefore expressed hope that the people of Ferozabad would extend full and active support to the party�s candidate and her campaign.

Earlier, district panchayat member Dilip Yadav garlanded Tapan Sen at the gathering. Glassworkers� leader Bhuri Singh Yadav, CPI(M) state secretary S P Kashyap, state CITU secretary Daulat Ram and CPI(M) candidate Rajjo Devi were also garlanded.

Addressing the gathering, district CPI(M) secretary Puttu Singh Rathode appealed to the people to vote for the party�s candidate in order to forge their own struggle ahead. Former district secretary of the CPI, Mahesh Shankhwar, said the Left is the only real alternative to the Congress as well as the BJP, and assured that his party would extend all-out support to Rajjo Devi�s campaign. Shiv Kumar Singh, Mukesh Yadav and D Desh Patharia also expressed their opinions at the meeting.

In the meantime, Rajjo Devi�s campaign is in full swing in the constituency. On April 14, a mass contact squad of the CPI(M) toured through a large number of villages in the Jasrana assembly segment and had had intensive contacts with the people. The squad was based on a number of eminent citizens of the area along with Advocate Naval Singh Ramsingh Yadav, Umesh Chand and other CPI(M) activists. The CPI(M) candidate and the mass contact squad received lively and enthusing support from the villagers, including women, in all these villages.

Addressing the rural people, Rajjo Devi raised the issue of lack of basic amenities, like potable water, power, healthcare and education in the area. She said poverty, unemployment and hunger stalk the whole region, and held the bourgeois landlord regime and parties like the Congress, BJP, SP and BSP squarely responsible for this situation. She assured the people that she would continue to fight for the people�s cause, just as she fought for the bangles and glass workers in the district and got the law regarding eight hours working day implemented here on the strength of these workers.