TRIPURA

CITU Organises A Huge Rally

Haripada Das

A mammoth rally of working class was organised by CITU Tripura state committee at Stable ground in Agartala on December 5, 2007.  The working people of Tripura declared that the victory of Left Front is imminent in the ensuing Assembly elections. The working people mostly unorganised workers comprising anganwadi workers, rubber plantation workers, tea workers, day labourers, construction workers, transport workers of all kinds of vehicles and many other trade based workers congregated at the rally site waving red flags and respective festoons of their unions.

M K Pandhe, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and all India President of CITU, chief minister and Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) Manik Sarkar, state CITU general secretary Pijush Nag addressed the rally including the state CITU president and minister Manik Dey who presided over the rally. In the dais were CPI(M) state secretary and renowned trade union leader of the state Baidyanath Majumder and state CITU vice president Sudarshan Das. The rally observed one minute silence separately in memory of Comrade Dinesh Debbarma , eminent CPI(M) and Ganamukti Parishad leader who passed away recently and paid homage to Suman Hussein of Nirvoypur, Sonamura, a construction worker who died in an accident on the way to Agartala to participate in this rally.

M K Pandhe said, Congress is not at all keen to serve the interest of toiling people. It is a party that serves the millionaires and big landholders. The UPA government headed by Congress was treacherous in not fulfilling its promises in the CMP, in the interest of working people of the country. So it is imperative to teach them a lesson in the ensuing Tripura Assembly elections, which will determine the course of Left movement throughout the country in the coming days, Pandhe said.

UPA government has been ruling the country for about three and a half years. It promised many things to the working class of the country, but all their promises proved to be hollow. There is no reason to believe they would perform for the toiling people in the rest of the term either, Pandhe said. Talking of the unorganised sector workers, who form 93 percent of the total work force of the country, Pandhe said, a country can never make a meaningful progress unless the vast section of the workers have any legal protection. The government is procrastinating over the unorganised sector workers bill and so is the fate of the agricultural workers bill, he said.  Even the Congress affiliated trade unions are pressing for passing of these bills in the parliament, but the UPA government, so committed to its class interest, is least concerned about alienation from their own people, Pandhe asserted. Pandhe heavily came down on the UPA government’s systematic effort to liquidate public sector and hand over the vital public sectors to the private hands, to drastically curtail workers’ rights, to down-size the government departments, to impose ban on new recruitment, failure to curb price rise by strengthening PDS system in the country and lastly, the attempt to snatch away the two square meals of four crores of small traders by opening up retail trade market for the multinationals.  Hailing the people of Tripura for their high political awareness, he said, they will once again will reject outright the Congress Party in the forthcoming Assembly elections slated to be held in February next year.

Congratulating the working people assembled in the rally, Manik Sarkar said, victory of the Left Front and formation of the Left Front government for sixth term in the ensuing Assembly elections would bear a significant meaning only when we could be able to gain new friends on our side. Explaining the nationwide importance of this electoral battle, Manik Sarkar said the victory in these elections will embolden the democratic battle, battle for protecting the hard-earned trade union rights and the anti imperialist struggle.

Explaining the economic affairs of the state, Manik Sarkar said, trade and commerce has grown, purchasing power of the people at present has risen than before and infrastructure is coming up gradually. He said, “At present we don’t claim that basic amenities like food, clothes, housing, education and health etc., could be guaranteed to all, but the Left Front government is earnestly working to achieve that goal. While the central government is rewarding the state for best performance in various sectors, our opposition parties are raising hurdles to each and every step of advancement of the state. In the midst of endless limitations, we are trying to formulate an alternative approach to the development in a state like ours, which cannot extract gains from its resources for want of infrastructure.” The opposition parties are opposing all vital demands in respect of state’s progress like the extension of rail, deployment of security forces, building of an alternative highway, completion of barbed wire fencing, equipping the police to combat terrorism, augmentation of PDS etc. It is shocking that to oppose the Left Front, they are insisting the central government not to allocate more funds to the state, on so called ridiculous plea of siphoning away government exchequer to inflate party fund. Can enmity against people go beyond that, Manik Sarkar questioned.

 Depicting the miserable plight of the common masses including working people in the dark days of Congress-TUJS coalition regime, Manik Sarkar said, semi-fascist terror was let loose to trample down all democratic rights, political rights, trade union rights. And the fundamental rights like right to live were blatantly flouted only to suppress popular anguish in those days. Hungry mothers at Damcherra who demanded food were dealt with bullets which relieved them of all hunger for ever. Democratic-minded people of Tripura shall not bring back that dark regime, Manik Sarkar asserted.

Referring to the Congress-INPT alliance, Manik Sarkar said, it is not a new thing in the state. So discredited they are that neither of them are in a position to face the electorate independently. They are hectically trying to negotiate with the secessionist extremists to gain their help during elections. That is why, it is imperative to keep strict vigil to resist any attempt to disturb peace, tranquility, and create fissures in the ethnic amity, he cautioned. The conscious people would not allow this, Manik Sarkar said.  

Manik Dey said that during the Congress-TUJS regime, those who demolished more than two hundred offices of the trade unions and of the opposition party, killed more than three hundred opposition leaders and workers, barbarously rigged all elections by means of brute force of their goons, terminated all the elected bodies never to conduct elections again and plundered away hundreds of crores of rupees from the government exchequer and ultimately rendered the state bankrupt, are now promising heaven on the earth. Democratic and politically conscious people will never be deceived, he said.