People's Democracy

CPI(M) DELHI UNIT

12th Conference Plans Expansion Of Party Base

Prakash Karat inaugurating the conference

The 12th state conference of the Delhi state committee of the CPI(M) was held on December 8-9, 2007 in Constitution Club, New Delhi. The venue was named after Comrade Anil Biswas, Polit Bureau member and secretary of West Bengal state committee of the Party, who passed away in 2006. The conference began with flag hoisting by state secretariat member, Baldev Singh and floral tribute to martyrs by the delegates. A three member presidium comprising of Mohan Lal, Asha Lata and Rampal was elected to conduct the proceedings of the conference.

Party general secretary, Prakash Karat inaugurated the conference. In his opening address he referred to the election of an unprecedented 61 MPs from the Left in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. The Party and the Left decided to extend outside support to the UPA government on the basis of the latter’s Common Minimum Programme, which included steps to check communalism, measures for providing relief to the people and upholding an independent foreign policy. While extending support, the Party never harboured any illusions about the commitment of the UPA government to neo-liberal policies. Therefore, 18th Party Congress called for increasing independent activities on different issues of the people, intensifying the struggle to ensure implementation of pro-people aspects of CMP and fighting back the anti-people policies of the government. It also called for resolutely fighting communalism and resisting all moves by imperialism to further impose its agenda in India. Now, after three years it was time to assess our work and activities on different issues.

Prakash Karat said that at the national level, the Party had made interventions on every policy issue and had definitely slowed down the pace of neo-liberal economic reforms. Any law that needed to be passed through the parliament and was against the interest of the people had been stopped. Major interventions of the Party included: stalling the disinvestments of PSUs, arresting the privatisation of airports, stopping FDI in insurance etc. Yet, on several policy issues that did not require parliamentary approval, the government had gone ahead. On such matters the Party had intervened through mass struggles. He also emphasised that over the last few years the Party had not only registered its opposition on several issues but had also proposed concrete alternatives to every policy.

He explained that it was precisely because our Party stood for a consistent alternative to the current policy regime, that the Party had also come under sharp attack from the ruling classes and the neo-liberal establishment. The Indo-US nuclear deal epitomised this contradiction. After the debate in both houses of the parliament, it was now clear that the majority of the parliament is opposed to the Indo-US nuclear deal. Our Party is determined to ensure that the Indo-US nuclear deal does not go through as it is detrimental to our national interests.

Over the last three years, two struggles waged by our Party are particularly noteworthy - the farmers’ agitation in Rajasthan and the struggle for homestead land in Andhra Pradesh. In both these struggles our comrades valiantly laid down their lives for the cause. The results of the assembly elections in West Bengal and Kerala were also heartening. However, the attack on our strongest base in West Bengal has intensified. In Nandigram, a concerted attack was launched against the Party and the Left Front government by the ruling classes. Prakash Karat ended his address by emphasising the need for our Party to continue expanding our movement and base in different parts of the country through more struggles on people’s issues. 

SECRETARY REPORT

P M S Grewal, secretary of the Delhi state committee presented the Report on the Party’s work in Delhi over the last three years. The politics of the state continues to be bi-polar and is divided between the Congress and the BJP. In the recent municipal elections in 2007, the BSP’s emergence as a distinct third force is notable. While the Congress received a decisive mandate from the people of the state in the 2004 general elections, by 2007 the BJP has managed to decisively win in municipal elections. This is an outcome of the anti-people and neo-liberal policies of the central and Delhi governments wherein they have shown a complete lack of will to implement policies in favour of the poor and instead pursued policies that are loaded in favour of the rich. The number of ration shops has decreased in proportion despite the growth in population and the PDS is in shambles. Civic amenities continue to remain highly inadequate. The government is promoting private hospitals and schools by starving government facilities of funds. The policy of reserving 25 per cent free seats in private schools and hospitals that received land on concessional rates from the Delhi government has not been implemented in spite of High Court orders. Electricity charges have been hiked twice to increase profits of private distribution companies while the people continue to suffer on account of irregular supply and inflated bills. Large scale demolition of shops has taken place, slums and small retailers continue to be displaced and the DDA has abandoned its responsibility to build low cost housing. The majority of workers are deprived of minimum wages and contractualisation of jobs has been promoted in various spheres. Transport facilities are woefully inadequate and private Blue Line buses continue to unleash their daily dance of death on the roads of the capital. The new Master Plan is pro-rich, crimes against women continue to remain very high, and Dalit and Muslim populations continue to face systemic discrimination.

In such a context, the Delhi state committee of the Party has waged campaigns on several people’s issues over the past three years. All these campaigns were received well by the people. The need to increase such struggles for gaining relief for the people however, continues to be a challenge before the Party. The most decisive intervention of our Party during the last three years was that of playing a leading role in the successful struggle to stop the privatisation of water in Delhi during 2005. The movement for improving the Public Distribution System in 2007 in view of steep price hikes also resulted in providing relief to people in some localities. Our campaigns against imperialism generated a positive response and resulted in improved mobilisations throughout the last three years, the most successful being the march against Bush visit to India in 2006. The Party also took positive initiative for ensuring the rights of Dalits and Muslims in Delhi by holding state level conventions and demonstrations, and evolving respective state level charters.

The Report was self-critical about the work done by the Party and mass organisations over the last three years. While positively noting the 30 per cent increase in Party membership since the last conference, the Report reviewed several organisational weaknesses that need to be overcome in order to face the acute neo-liberal offensive in Delhi. The Report identified areas of priority for future work and also identified areas for contesting elections in the coming days. The need for expanding the base of the Party through strengthening the local struggles and organisation was especially emphasised.

PARTICIPATION AND NEW LEADERSHIP

A total of 147 delegates and 4 observers participated in the conference. 28 of them were women. 51 delegates participated in the discussions. They shared and reviewed their experiences and activities over the last three years. Most delegates emphasised the need for overcoming organisational weaknesses in order to expand the work of the Party in the state. After reply to the two day long discussion by the secretary, the Report was adopted unanimously by the conference. Resolutions were adopted on the rights of workers, against imperialism, against neo-liberal economic policies, against communalism, against violence against women, for the rights of Dalits and Muslims and on the state of education and civic amenities in the city.

The conference elected a 25 member state committee. This includes 6 new members and a total of 6 women. The newly elected state committee re-elected P M S Grewal as state secretary and elected a 7 member secretariat comprising of Mohan Lal, Brahmjit Singh, Baldev Singh, Vijender Sharma, Pushpinder Grewal, K M Tiwari and Rampal.

Jogendra Sharma, central committee member, gave the concluding address. He noted the marked improvement in the level of debate of the conference in which comrades made an honest effort towards reviewing their weaknesses and concretely planning the expansion of the Party in Delhi. He also spoke on the current political situation and called upon all delegates to translate the possibilities before the party into reality in the coming days.