People's Democracy

CPI(M)�s Mass Campaign Gains Momentum In Ferozabad

Umesh Chandra

Puttusingh Rathod

FEROZABAD, known far and wide for its bangles industry, lacks even minimal civic amenities like water, power, health services and roads, and it is the bourgeois-landlord parties, their governments and their representatives in the law-making bodies who are squarely responsible for this state of affairs. That is why the people of Ferozabad need to teach a lesson to the Congress, the BJP, the SP and the BSP for their criminal negligence of the people�s problems, and elect the CPI(M) in this seat. This was the opinion the CPI(M)�s candidate, Rajjo Devi, known for her fighting spirit, has been expressing all through her intensive poll campaign here.

On March 30, Rajjo Devi toured through Madhai, Fatehpura, Nagla Gande, Nagla Kaans, Nagla Kewal, Nagla Chandi, Nagla Budhus, Kabirpur, Bhadesara, Naga Shivsingh, Jaitpura, Burha Bhartara, Rutheni, Surajpur, Rughaini, Banipura and several other villages where she had had intensive mass contacts. The voters enthusiastically welcomed her in all these villages and expressed their support to the CPI(M). Advocate Naval Singh led this mass contact jatha which included a large number of CPI(M) workers and other people.

Addressing the street corner meetings in all these villages, Rajjo Devi told the people that she would be standing by them in all their thick and thin, fighting for roads, water, power, ration cards and other things the common people need.

Earlier, on March 24, voters held a meeting in Suhag Nagar, Sector 1, where it was pointed out that it was because of struggles led by Rajjo Devi that the bangle workers have been able to come out of the yoke of 14-hour and 16-hour working days, and the rule of 8-hours working day has been established. This is how the bangle workers are today enjoying comparative freedom and are free from the curse of a subhuman existence, now devoting their attention to their family, their children and their education etc.

The CPI(M)�s state secretariat member, Daulat Ram, was invited to address this meeting. He expressed the hope that the electorate of Ferozabad would elect Rajjo Devi to the Lok Sabha, thus making a contribution to the formation of a non-Congress, non-BJP government at the centre.

On the same day, the CPI(M) candidate toured through more than 20 villages where her mass contact drive received enthusiastic response. The CPI(M) candidate assured the rural people that she would fight for remunerative prices for their produce, and for power, water, all-season roads, health centres, old-age and widow pensions, public distribution system, BPL cards and other necessaries of life.

On March 25, the candidate had had direct contacts with thousands of industrial workers in the Mazdoor Mandi, located in the industrial area of Nagla Bhau. She detailed the struggles waged by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) for the workers, most of whom are unorganised workers, and appealed to them to vote for her. Here the workers told her that employers still extract eight and a half hours of work from them and that, whenever a complaint is lodged, floor managers try to physically beat the complainants and dismiss them from work. CITU district secretary, Bhurisingh Yadav, then assured the workers that the CITU would soon bring this to the notice of the assistant labour commissioner and district administration. Since then, the CITU has given a memorandum to the assistant labour commissioner for compulsory implementation of six-monthly dearness allowance, ESI scheme and EPF attendance register. Workers here assured their full and active support for the CPI(M) and pledged to assist the party�s election campaign.

On March 29, a workers meeting took place in Karimnagar, chaired by Ali Ahmed Khan. District secretary Puttusingh Rathod, Bhurisingh Yadav, Pappu Abbasi, Usman Bhai, Asghar Usmani, Rajeev and others expressed their views. It was underlined that only the CPI(M) and the Left could rid the country of evils like the imperialist menace, communalism, terrorism, joblessness, rising prices, starvation, illiteracy, poverty and corruption. The speakers also noted that it was only the CPI(M) and the CITU who enabled the bangle workers of Ferozabad to fight the inhuman exploitation prevalent here and gain their dignity. As a dedicated leader of the bangle workers� struggle, Rajjo Devi fully deserves their vote and support.

The meeting chalked out a programme for the poll campaign. It would include the establishment of election offices, holding of street corner meetings, mass rallies and processions, collection of funds and running intensive mass contact drives.