People's Democracy

HISTORIC YOUTH RALLY IN AGARTALA

‘Left Front Government is Invincible’

Rahul Sinha

A SEA of youth overwhelmed the city of Agartala on November 28 when the city witnessed the largest ever mobilisation of youth in the recent years. It was the day when the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and the Tribal Youth Federation (TYF) organised a central rally to announce the rock-solid pledge of the youth of the state to re-elect the Left Front government for the seventh time.

The two youth organisations had sought permission from the Union Home Ministry to hold the rally at the Assam Rifles ground since they had anticipated that no other ground in the city would be enough to accommodate the gathering. But even after continuous persuasion for three months, the centre declined to permit the rally to be held at the AR ground. So the place of the meeting had to be shifted to Vivekananda Stadium (Stable Ground) at the last moment though its capacity is barely half that of the AR ground. The youth leaders had announced beforehand that the since the centre, in connivance with the Congress leadership of the state, has denied the use of AR ground for the meeting, the youth of Tripura would give them a fitting reply by turning the whole city into a meeting ground. That the claim was not baseless was well proved on November 28.

From the noon itself, huge contingents of tribal and non-tribal youth started pouring into the city, occupying all the streets. They were vibrant, colourful and enthusiastic. No word is enough to describe the zeal of the youth who came from all corners of the state to join the meeting. Tableaux, cartoons, masks and posters were used to portray the anti-people and anti-youth policies of the Congress led UPA government at the centre. While a young man wore a mask of the prime minister to say through a placard that the latter is in company of the swindlers, there was also an effigy of the PCC president Sudip Roy Barman who has become infamous for his letter to the union HRD minister asking the latter not to allow appointment of 5000 undergraduate teachers. The mask on the effigy read: I am Sudip, the mastermind behind the blocking the appointment of 5000 teachers. Another poster with a picture of Tihar Central Jail read: Next meeting of the union cabinet shall be held here!

The roaring contingents continually shouted slogans saying the youth would re-elect the Left Front government by defeating all sorts of conspiracies, thus sending shivers through the spines of the Congress leaders. When the mass meeting formally started at 2.30 p m, the ground and the galleries were packed up, but thousands of the youth were still pouring into the city. A large number of vehicles could not even enter the city as the whole city was occupied by a sea of youth. The gathering was historic. The only rally which political commentators could compare it with was the Left Front rally at AR ground, addressed by late Comrade Jyoti Basu before the 1988 assembly elections.

This historic gathering was addressed by the Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar, DYFI’s all-India general secretary Abhoy Mukherjee, DYFI state secretary Amal Chakraborty and TYF general secretary Pranab Debbarma. A presidium comprising the DYFI state president Tapas Dutta, TYF president Radhacharan Debbarma and DYFI Central Executive Committee member Mitali Bhattacharya presided over the meeting. At the outset Manik Sarkar released a booklet published by the DYFI.

Congratulating the DYFI and TYF for this mammoth gathering of the youth, Manik Sarkar said this huge rally of the youth had broken all the past records. He said youth power was in the forefront of our struggle of independence against the mighty British imperialism and martyrs like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Khudiram, Binay, Badal, Dinesh and Pritilata Waddadar had sacrificed their lives for a dream that after it became independent India would be free from poverty, illiteracy, hunger and unemployment. But their dream is still far from realised. For more than five decades the Congress party has ruled the centre and most of the states but has only betrayed the people. India has the biggest youth population in the world today. But unfortunately the ruling classes and their political representative, the Congress party, have failed to evolve a national youth policy all these years. Had they done so, the number of unemployed youth of the country would not have reached 20 crores as on today. Leave alone taking steps to give them employment, they are not filling up the 40 to 44 lakh vacant posts in different ministries and departments of the central government while the nationalised banks, insurance sector, PSUs and even the security forces are suffering from huge staff shortages. Banks are not giving loans at easy conditions to the youth who want to be self-employed. The centre is privatising all the PSUs, which will lead to further job cuts. On top of that, succumbing to the pressure of the US, the centre is opening up the retail business for foreign retail giants like Walmart, Tesco etc. This shall prove disastrous for the country as about four crore people working in retail trade will lose their source of livelihood and the lives of 20 crore people depending on them will be ruined. Sarkar said as long as the Left Front is running the state of Tripura it would not allow FDI to enter the retail trade in the state. Manik Sarkar said the policies of the centre have led to the catastrophe in agriculture, forcing more than 2.5 lakh farmers to commit suicide. Not only in Tripura, all over the country this UPA government has waged a war against the youth, and that is precisely the reason why DYFI has called for an Occupy Parliament Street agitation on  March 23, the day of martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.

Manik Sarkar said: in stark contrast to the anti-youth policies of the centre, the Left Front government of Tripura is working day in and day out for all sections of the people including the youth. With the expansion of the state’s administrative structure through an increase in the number of districts, subdivisions and blocks, the scope of employment has also increased. Tripura has defied the centre’s diktat to stop employment in government sector and 20 to 21 thousands of youth have been engaged in different government departments in the last four years. We have not closed down a single state PSU; rather we have helped them to recover. Now out of the 14 PSUs of the state, seven are making profits and paying dividends to the government. In the implementation of MNREGA Tripura is at the top of all the states regarding generation of workdays, but the centre is not releasing adequate funds. Besides employment in the government departments, almost 50,000 self-help groups (SHGs) have been formed to create avenues of self-employment for the youth. He said Congress MLAs keep mum when the Left Front MLAs show the centre’s circular banning employment in the assembly. We were preparing to recruit 5000 new UG teachers in primary schools, but the PCC president wrote a letter asking the Union HRD ministry not to allow these recruitments. The youth of the state should ask for an explanation from the Congress for this act.

Mentioning the people’s plight due to skyrocketing prices, Sarkar said, instead of providing food security to all, the centre is introducing the system of cash transfer of subsidy which would ultimately lead to the dismantling of the public distribution system.

The UPA government has institutionalised corruption. From 2-G  to coal block scams, the loss to public exchequer due to corruption has surpassed five lakh crores which, if realised, would have sufficed for providing 35 kg of foodgrains to all the families at Rs 2 per kg without any extra expenditure for a few years. Rubbishing the Congress’s allegation of no development and all corruption in Tripura, he asked how then the per capita income of the state has gone up from Rs 24,394 in 2004-05 to Rs 50750 in 2011-12.

Sarkar said the Congress is hatching conspiracies against the Left Front government. The INPT, allied to the Congress, works as the mask of NLFT extremists and the confession of arrested extremist Dhanu Koloi has revealed that money collected for extremists was handed over to him in front of a tribal leader of the Congress party. Sarkar said after the mammoth rallies of the GMP and SC Coordination Committee, the youth rally of the day had made it clear that nothing could stop the formation of a seventh Left Front government in Tripura. But we have to guard against all sorts of conspiracies. The victory of the Left Front in the ensuing election is necessary not for Tripura alone, but for the whole of the country. The people are in search of an alternative to the Congress and the BJP, and that alternative can be provided by the Left alone. Sarkar urged the youth who are still with the Congress to rethink as opposing the Left Front will mean opposing the development of the state and their own interests. He asked the DYFI cadre to win over more and more new friends in the run up to the elections.

DYFI general secretary Abhoy Mukherjee said the Left Front government of Tripura is like a lighthouse for the rest of the country. Victory of the Left Front here would boost the movements all over the country. The Left Front government means development, progress, education, employment and guarantee of a life with dignity while the central government is shutting down the doors of employment. As recently as on November 1, one lakh posts in central government departments were abolished. Mukherjee said the DYFI would occupy the Parliament Street to protest against these policies, and expressed the hope that the youth of Tripura would leave no stone unturned to ensure the victory of the Left Front. The victory of the latter would have its impact also on the panchayat elections in West Bengal next year where the people have started realising the real face of the “parivartan” (change) slogan.