People's Democracy

CPI(M)’s Appeal To The UP Electorate

UTTAR PRADESH is going to elect its 15th state assembly. This election is taking place in a complicated situation. The state is witnessing severe divisions on communal and caste lines, which are obstructing the development of a democratic movement in the state and forging of joint struggles against the neo-liberal policies in the interest of common man. 

GROWING THREAT OF COMMUNALISM

Communalism still poses a big threat and challenge in our state. It is true that a large section of the people have rejected the BJP. But this party is still striving to come back to power by creating communal frenzy and polarisation. It has announced a return to the Hindutva platform in its national executive meeting in Lucknow on December 6. The temple-mosque issue is again being raked up. BJP MP Aditya Nath and his Hindu Yuva Vahini are creating communal terror in Gorakhpur. Minorities were recently targeted at Sindhua and Rajnagar in Padrauna and in Gorakhpur. These were preceded by riots in Mau, Lucknow, Aligarh and Meerut etc. Plots are afoot to convert the whole of Purvanchal into a Gujarat. There has been communal violence in several cities in the country and the state since the national executive meeting of the BJP. The BJP’s election campaign in UP is in the RSS’ hands which is trying everything to make the BJP win on the strength of Hindutva and communalism. But other secular parties are overlooking this danger in the state. It is imperative to defeat the communal forces in UP and routing the BJP is the need of the hour. 

ASSESSING THE RECORDS OF GOVERNMENTS

After the assembly polls in 2002, the BSP formed a government in alliance with the communal BJP. The latter kept pushing its Hindutva agenda ahead during the regime of this opportunist alliance. Nothing remarkable was done for dalit uplift during the one and a half years of Ms Mayavati’s regime. Crimes against and oppression of women only increased. There were scams and corruption, and the misery of every section of the people, of peasants, workers and agricultural labour, grew. After ruining the state for one and a half years, the government fell to the same opportunism that had brought it into existence. 

Then a Samajwadi Party led coalition government ruled the state for three and a half years. It was supported from outside by the CPI(M) and other secular parties who wanted to keep the communal forces away from power. But the SP government did not fulfil the people’s expectations. The law and order situation deteriorated; crimes jumped up. The government did take some positive steps but they failed to benefit the poor and the toiling mass. 

Peasants, workers, youth, students and employees had had to wage struggles for their demands in these five years, and their mass struggles had to face the oppression unleashed by the police and administration. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) stood by the people during these struggles and took part in them with all the force at its command. 

CONCLUSION

This is the firm opinion of all the politically conscious people that democratic development, first of all, requires that we overcome the communal divisions and communalism. For this purpose, defeating the BJP and its probable allies is the primary task today. The people’s interests can be defended only after getting the communal forces under check. 

The CPI(M) believes that people can defend their interests only by the mass pressure built up through their unity and united struggles. The party has done everything possible in the last five years to raise the level of the people’s consciousness through political, ideological and economic struggles. The CPI(M) led mass organisations have also raised the issues concerning the industrial and agricultural workers, youth and students, women, employees etc, and conducted struggles against the ruinous neo-liberal economic policies, against the communal forces of various hues, and against imperialist interventions. Struggles for workers were fought in Ferozabad, Allahabad, Bareilly, Bulandshahar, Gorakhpur and other districts, and of peasants in Varanasi, Kushinagar, Deoria etc. Some dedicated comrades of the party, like Amarendra Pndey (Allahabad), Radheshyam and Sanjay (Sultanpur), sacrificed their lives in these struggles.

The CPI(M) assures the people of UP that its members elected to the new assembly would work for implementation of a minimum programme in order to get the burning problems of the people addressed.

THE CPI(M)’S PROGRAMME

The CPI(M)’s programme includes the following issues. 

For Industrial and Agricultural Workers: Reopening of the closed and sick mills. Stop to lockouts and retrenchment. Stop to indiscriminate privatisation of public sector enterprises. Withdrawal of the decision to close down certain corporations and boards. Immediate appointments on the vacant posts in government departments. Curb on violation of labour laws by managements and owners; strict implementation of these laws. Stop to the contract system. Withdrawal of anti-worker amendments in labour laws. Proper constitution of tripartite committees. 

Increase in the minimum wage for unskilled workers to Rs 3,500 a month and corresponding increases in the minimum wages for other categories of workers. Withdrawal of the anti-people and anti-national economic policies. Return of the facilities snatched from government employees. 

Ensured daily minimum wage of Rs 80 for every agricultural worker and ensured work for at least 250 days a year. Equal wage for women workers. A comprehensive legislation for agricultural workers. Unconditional waiver of loans owed by agricultural workers up to Rs 5,000. Financial assistance for them to build a house or purchase a housing plot. 

For Peasants: Proper relief and compensation in case of crop losses due to natural disasters or spurious seeds and pesticides. Waiver of all loans owed by common peasants. Ensured 24-hour supply of power for agriculture. Supply of all agricultural inputs to the peasantry at subsidised prices. Ensured remunerative prices to the peasants for their produce, and continuation of the policy of support prices and governmental procurement for the purpose.

More public investment in irrigation and in agricultural research. Proper attention to the extension and maintenance of canal and other means of irrigation in the state. 

Implementation of a pro-peasant policy package in order to overcome the ongoing agrarian crisis. 
Amendments in the land acquisition law. Scientific devising of all-inclusive policies in case land is acquired for industrialisation or other developmental projects, so that proper compensations and rehabilitation packages are made available to the peasants and agricultural workers losing their lands and/or livelihood.

For Youth: Low-cost education. Stop to privatisation, commercialisation and communalisation of education. Filling up of all vacant teacher posts in government schools. Arrangement of adequate funds for improving the level of education in schools. Immediate repairing of all unsafe school buildings. Opening of technical education institutes in all rural areas. Immediate steps to curb the arbitrary practices of the managements in private educational institutions and to enhance the quality of education.

Creation of more employment opportunities and unemployment allowance for all the jobless youth. Appointments on thousands of vacant posts in government departments and stop to elimination of the posts declared surplus. Immediate lifting of the ban on recruitment in government departments. Appointment of educationists as vice chancellors in universities.

For Women: Effective steps to stop the atrocities against women. Strict implementation of the laws against dowry and domestic violence. Immediate 33 percent reservation of seats for women in parliament and state assemblies.

For Dalits and Minorities: Stop to police atrocities against dalits. Curb on their oppression. Proper implementation of SC/ST Act. Timely payment of scholarship to dalit students and renovation of their hostels. Special package for the development of minorities, in accordance with the CPI(M)’s 15-point programme. 

For Common People and the Poor: Provision of necessary amenities like water, power, transport, education and health to the backward and neglected areas. 

Provision of cheap healthcare facilities in government hospitals so that common citizens are able to bear the treatment costs, and prompt reforms in these hospitals for the purpose. Immediate appointments on the vacant posts of doctors and paramedical staff, particularly in rural areas. 

Adequate provision of drinking water, sewerage, roads, street lights, parks and other amenities in the poor people’s habitations in all cities and towns. Drastic reduction of user charges taken from the poor for these services.

Implementation of the Right to Information Act to ensure transparency in governmental work. Curb on rampant corruption in government departments. Involvement of common people and mass organisations in the anti-corruption drive. 

Effective use of media to raise the people’s consciousness against the evils of communalism of all hues. Steps to isolate the communal, fundamentalist, divisive and secessionist forces at all levels. Steps to take the secular and patriotic traditions of Uttar Pradesh further ahead. 

Subsidised supply of 14 essential items through the public distribution system that must be universalised. Pending it, provision of ration cards for all those below the poverty line. Effective implementation of the Antyodaya scheme. Easy pension rules for the aged, widows and handicapped, and ensured pension for all the needy persons. Implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme in all districts of the state. 

Stop to privatisation of water and power in the state. No permission to foreign capital in retail trade. Implementation of the new pension scheme in UP the way the Left-led governments have done. 

Restructuring of the centre-state relations to provide more power to the states within the framework of Indian federalism. 

AN APPEAL

The interests of the common people in Uttar Pradesh and its democratic development require the formation of a government that is secular and accountable to the people As the sentinel of the people’s interests, the CPI(M) appeals to the people of the state to elect all its candidates, so that they raise the people’s issues in the new house.

CPI(M) Nominees In UP Polls

The CPI(M) has put up 14 candidates for the Uttar Pradesh for assembly polls, for whom it would solicit support from other secular parties. On the remaining seats, with the aim of ensuring the defeat of communal forces, the party would extend support to those candidates of secular parties who appear capable of defeating the BJP. 

The CPI(M) nominees for various seats are given below.