ANDHRA PRADESH

First Death Anniversary Of Mudigonda Martyrs

Organise Land Struggles Again

  M Venugopala Rao

LEADERS of the CPI(M) gave a call to the people for launching the land struggle again, with the inspiration of the sacrifice of seven martyrs of Mudigonda who lost their lives in the police firing exactly one year back  in Khammam district in connection with the land struggle of the people led by the Party. They stressed on the need for collective fight by different political parties to defeat the Congress in the coming elections. Addressing a massive public meeting held at Mudigonda and attended by thousands of people on July 28, 2008, Brinda Karat, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) and MP, reassured  the families of the Mudigonda martyrs that the CPI(M) would stand by them.   History would forget the name of the chief minister, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, while the names of the Mudigonda martyrs would remain forever in history, she said.  Movements would grow with the blood of the martyrs, just as plants grew with rainfall, Brinda said.   She asked the people not to stop the struggle for land and house sites in the state.  Asking the Congress to understand that Andhra Pradesh was not anybody's property, she pointed out that it was the land of heroic Telangana armed struggle which had given inspiration and guidance to many struggles of the people in the country.  Lashing out at the state government for stopping implementation of the national rural employment guarantee act under the pretext of availability of work during the present agricultural season, Brinda Karat   made it clear that the act was brought about because of the pressure brought by the Left parties on the UPA government. She warned the government that the CPI(M) would not keep quiet if the rights of the people were trampled. Referring to the indebtedness of families of the rural poor and steep hike in prices of essential commodities, she demanded the government to give 35 kgs of rice to each poor family through the public distribution system.  Criticising the UPA government for its moves on the nuclear deal and other agreements with the USA to mortgage our country to the latter, Brinda Karat said that suitcases of money had come from Andhra Pradesh for purchasing the votes of some of the members of parliament in the recent confidence vote. She asked the people to warn the Congress that it would be dislodged from power.

 

UNITED FIGHT TO DEFEAT CONGRESS

 

B V Raghavulu, Polit Bureau member and state secretary of the CPI(M), announced that land struggle would be again launched in the month of August and that talks were held with the CPI on the issue.  The police firing on the martyrs of Mudigonda one year back was deliberate and the chief minister was responsible for it, he said.  Thanking the families of the Mudigonda martyrs for continuing to stand courageously by the struggles of the people, he appealed to the people to teach a fitting lesson to the government through land struggle.  The Congress government was trying to suppress the CPI(M) for conducting struggles and questioning corruption of the government and for that purpose it had selected the Left bastions of Khammam and Nalgonda districts, Raghavulu explained.   The police firing at Mudigonda one-year back was one such attempt, he said.   Raghavulu asserted that the struggles would be taken forward and for that the Party was prepared to undergo sacrifices.  Recollecting that the chief minister ridiculed the demand for house sites during the land struggle, contending that the government would construct houses for the poor, Raghavulu explained that out of 80 lakh houses sanctioned, construction of even 17 lakh houses was not completed as revealed during the recent conference of district collectors and that corruption was rampant in the implementation of the scheme.  He gave a call for not only the Left parties but also secular parties like the TDP, TRS, Mana Party, Lok Satta and NTPP (Devender Goud) to come together to defeat the Congress in the coming elections. Secretary of Khammam district committee of the CPI(M) P Sudarsan presided over the meeting. Tammineni Veerabhadram, Central Committee member of the CPI(M) and MLA, CPI district secretary K Sambasiva Rao, Sunnam Rajayya, CPI(M) MLA and other leaders T S Prasad, M Subba Rao and K Ayilayya addressed the meeting.

MEETING AGAINST INDIA-US NUCLEAR DEAL

 

Addressing a meeting on July 28, organised by the city committee of the CPI(M) in Hyderabad against India-US nuclear deal, Brinda Karat  warned that operationalisation of the deal would endanger our country's sovereignty,  besides affecting our agriculture, industries and other sectors.  It would spoil our country's relations with the countries in West Asia, she said.  What does Rahul Gandhi, who was being called as yuvaraj in the Congress, know about the difficulties of the downtrodden people, she asked and found fault with him for not talking about the dangerous developments that would follow if the nuclear deal were operationalised.  By voting for the confidence motion in the parliament, the MIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi, in support of the pro-America deal, had affected the sentiments of the Muslims, she commented.  The Manmohan Singh government had lost the confidence of the people by purchasing votes to win the confidence motion in the parliament, Brinda Karat said.  She criticised the Manmohan government for its  failure in curbing growing terrorism in the country and its inaction in connection with blasts at several places in the country resulting in death of several people.  Taking responsibility for the failure, the government should step down, she demanded.   P Madhu, Central Committee member of the CPI(M) and MP,  commented that while the MIM had supported the Congress on the nuclear deal, the latter had supported the US. Knowing fully well that the consequences of the nuclear deal are detrimental to our national interests, the Manmohan government was burning its fingers, he said.