People's Democracy

MANIPUR

CPI(M) 15TH State Conference Held

Noorul Huda

THE 15th state (organising committee) conference of Manipur state unit of CPI(M) was held in Imphal city on November 27-28, 2007. A three member presidium comprising M Shamu, L Kunjo and Joy conducted the proceedings. The conference was attended by 59 delegates including ten state organising committee members representing approximately 500 Party members in the state. There were ten observers. Among the delegates, six were women.

The Party flag was hoisted by central committee member Noorul Huda. He spoke in the inaugural ceremony and said that in spite of the debacle suffered by US imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan and facing rowing isolation at home and abroad, president George Bush and his cohorts persist in pursuing the policy of unipolarisation and world domination creating an atmosphere of fear, intimidation and threat which pose grave danger to world peace and security. On the other hand, the UPA government headed by prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi refuse to implement the pro-people measures contained in the Common Minimum Programme, thus accentuating the divide between the rich and the poor, further impoverishing millions of working class and the peasantry. He said the central government has buckled under the pressure of US imperialism and insists on signing the Indo-US nuclear deal in spite of majority opinion of our people against the deal (both inside and outside the parliament), thus endangering our national sovereignty and making it impossible for the country to follow an independent foreign policy.

Noorul Huda then dwelt upon the barrage of hateful and malicious propaganda carried out by large sections of print and electronic media against our Party and the Left Front government in West Bengal since the beginning of January 2007. He explained what had actually happened in and around Nandigram in the district of East Midnapore, our policy of land reforms and distribution of land among the poor and dispossessed peasantry, the need for industrialisation in West Bengal and the steps our Party and the Left Front government had taken to dispel the fears and anxieties of peasantry since February 2007. However, in spite of all our efforts, all the reactionary forces from extreme left CPI (Maoist), the Trinamul Congress, the Congress(I), SUCI, to the rightist Muslim communal outfits and BJP combined to malign and discredit the CPI(M) and the Left Front government in West Bengal. Although all these forces were roundly defeated in all panchayat, municipality, assembly and Lok Sabha elections from 1977 to 2006 in West Bengal, they are hatching conspiracies to overthrow the duly elected government through illegal and unconstitutional means which are bound to fail miserably.

Finally the central committee member urged the delegates to realise that in spite of big potential for expansion of our Party in Manipur that was founded by legendary communist revolutionary Jananeta Irabat Singh  in 1943,  our  Party remains small because of weakness in organisational structure, failure to implement the decisions and directives of the central committee of CPI(M), to go deep among the peasantry and other working people, build up mass organisations and ideologically equip the Party on the basis of Marxism – Leninism which are basic to develop and strengthen the Party in Manipur. He expressed hope that the 15th state conference of CPI(M) in Manipur would prove to be a turning point in building the Party as a mass revolutionary party.

The draft political and organisational report of the secretariat was read out and explained by state secretariat member Salam Sarat. The report characterised the Secular Progressive Front government in Manipur headed by Congress(I) chief minister as protective of bourgeois landlord class in Manipur. Though CPI’s senior leader, Parijat Singh is one of the 12 cabinet ministers in Manipur (they have 4 MLAs in a House of 60 members), the SPF government has been pursuing a neo-liberal policy of privatisation, fiscal austerity, closure of public sector units and non utilisation of large amount of central government funds for developmental works. There is negative growth in the agricultural sector; quantity of rice produced in 2005-06 was 3.86 MT, which is 1.42 MT short against state requirement and breakdown of public distribution system leading to pauperisation of peasants and agricultural labour who constitute the majority of the local workforce in the state. The report speaks about large-scale corruption in the state where ministers and bureaucrats vie with each other in pocketing most of developmental funds in the name of percentage cut taken by the insurgents. All these have resulted in power crisis, drinking water shortage and phenomenal rise in the number of unemployed – the total of which is presently around 5.9 lakhs. The law and order situation has gone absolutely out of control as a result of spurt in insurgency activities. Every ethnic group has its own insurgent outfit. During elections almost all the political parties and even independent candidates take help of the insurgents. Crime against women in the state is rising.

After the last state assembly elections (2007) in Manipur, the strength of the Parties in the assembly is as follows:

Congress (I) 31, CPI 4, NCP 4, Manipur People’s Party 5, RJD 3, NPP 3, and Independents 10. The CPI(M) contested only one seat, but due to organisational weakness of the Party and the money and muscle power used by all the candidates of other political parties, our vote share was not upto expectation. During the recent panchayat elections, our Party could not retain the two seats in Imphal East and Imphal West because of the same above stated reasons.

21 delegates including two women participated in the discussions on the report and offered concrete suggestions besides being critical of the leadership on many counts. The outgoing secretary, Y Mahendra replied to the debate. The conference adopted resolutions on matters of pressing concern such as law and order, Armed Forces Special Power Act, corruption, privatisation, unemployment, health care, education, crime against women, PDS and problems of hill people.

The conference elected a 15-member state organising committee, including two women members. Salam Sarat was elected secretary of the state organising committee. The newly elected committee met on November 29, 2007 and elected the state secretariat of six members. The conference elected Salam Sarat and Biren Singh as delegates to the 19th Party Congress scheduled to be held in Coimbatore, Tamilnadu in March-April 2008.