PUNJAB 

CPI(M) Condemns Government’s Anti-Peasant Steps

THE Punjab state secretariat of the CPI(M) has observed that the pegging of minimum support price (MSP) for wheat at the last year’s level of Rs 620 per quintal is a cruel joke upon the peasants of Punjab which is a surplus state and contributes a lion’s share to making the country self-sufficient in food. Strongly condemning this anti-peasant step of the Vajpayee government, taken in pursuance of the disastrous WTO-dictated polices, the secretariat demanded that peasants be duly compensated for the increased cost of production because of costlier fertilisers, pesticides and other inputs and reintroduction of power and water charges for the agriculture sector. The secretariat asked the central government to review its harmful decision and raise the MSP for wheat, so that the peasantry is saved from ruin and also the country’s food security is protected.

Through another resolution, the secretariat condemned the detracting game of the leaders of various bourgeois-landlord parties, aimed at diverting the people’s attention from various issues pertaining to politics, development and good governance, and at avoiding accountability to the people by raising personal and private issues such as moral turpitude, etc. The secretariat asked the people to beware of this hoodwinking game of the bourgeois-landlord leaders while taking serious note of the systemic moral degeneration of the moribund bourgeois-landlord system in which a majority of these leaders are rotten to the core. (INN)