Tamilnadu

Left Organises Political Campaign Against Price Rise & Nuke Deal

A A NAINAR

THE months of July and August saw serious campaigns throughout the state of Tamilnadu in various forms, condemning the inability of the union government to control the price line and against operationalising the nuclear deal with the US illegitimately, by manipulating the parliamentary mandate for the survival of UPA government. Immediately on learning that Manmohan Singh had decided to go ahead with the nuclear deal , ignoring the Left objections, on July 14, 2008 massive demonstrations were conducted throughout the state. After the confidence vote in parliament, from July 25 to August 10, the Left parties conducted various programmes. Largely attended public meetings were held in ten centres namely, Chennai, Vellore, Thiruvarur, Madurai, Coimbatore, Tirupur, Salem, Trichirapalli, Tirunelveli and Erode.

As early on July 16, a public meeting was held in Chennai which was addressed by Prakash Karat and D Raja. Dwelling at length about the background in which the Left parties were forced to withdraw support to the government, Prakash vehemently criticised the Congress and its leaders for reneging on their promise to consult the UPA-Left committee before proceeding further on going to IAEA. While on July 8, the Foreign Affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee was promising for a meeting of the UPA-Left on July 10, the prime minister on the same day, on the way to G-8 meeting briefed the press that they have decided to proceed further and are going to IAEA for talks soon, Prakash said. When the whole country is reeling under a hyper inflation and life of common man is severely affected, the government without addressing this basic issue wanted to keep up the promise given to the US on the question of the nuclear deal. The conceit with which the Indian government wanted to become a strategic partner of the US imperialism is highly condemnable, he added. D Raja of the CPI also expressed strong condemnation on similar lines. They called upon the people to defeat these forces to defend democracy, self-reliance, secularism and independent foreign policy.

Prakash Karat with other leaders attended another public meeting at Thiruvarur on August 13. Sitaram Yechury arrived in Madurai on August 8 for a public meeting which was cancelled later due to heavy rains. However he met the press and expressed the views of the Left parties, which was widely carried through in the media. Brinda Karat attended a public meeting on August 5 at Vellore. K Varadarajan, another Polit Bureau member attended the public meeting held at Tirunelveli. The Central Committee members and state leaders of the CPI (M) N Varadarajan, T K Rangarajan, W RVaradarajan, U Vasuki, G Ramakrishnan, A Soundararajan and K Balakrishnan attended the other public meetings along with the CPI leaders D Pandian, R Nallakannu and their other state level leaders.

As a culmination of these meetings, a human chain programme was observed on August 14 throughout the state in which thousands of people participated. The CPI(M) and the CPI cadres had distributed about five lakh copies of pamphlets and handbills explaining the points of the Left campaign. Hundreds of street corner meetings were held earlier throughout the state attended by the local leaders of the two parties.

The state committee of the CPI(M) had given a call for mobilising the people on the demands raised at the 10 parties� meeting held in New Delhi on the July 23. It had exhorted all the democratic and secular minded parties in the state to rally behind the demands which will be a beginning for forging an alternative in the state to isolate the BJP and defeat the Congress and their opportunist allies.

The state secretariat of the CPI(M) is meeting on August 22-23, 2008 in Chennai. The state executive and the state committee of the CPI is meeting at Hosur for four days starting from August 22. Both the parties will sit together again by the month end to chalk out their collective strategies to realise the political objectives, the cornerstones of which are freedom, democracy, secularism and the well being of the toiling people.