Other States - Rajasthan   

Call for unity of Left, secular forces to defeat BJP

JAIPUR: The Communist Party of India has called for unity of all Left and democratic forces to ensure defeat of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Rajasthan in the elections scheduled later this year. The party proposes to concentrate in the coming months on improving its own prospects in the Assembly polls and coordinate the activities of like-minded groups so that a non-BJP Government comes to power in the State.

In a political resolution passed at the party’s State convention held in Jodhpur from March 3 to 5, the CPI leadership termed the BJP-led dispensation in Rajasthan a “corrupt, feudal and communal government” which had carried out many anti-people acts in the past four years, including firing upon farmers who demanded water for irrigation.

“The Government has gained notoriety as a land broker by facilitating big companies and the developers in procuring huge tracts of land belonging to small farmers, Dalits and Adivasis,” the resolution said.

“We know our presence is marginal in Rajasthan but our efforts would be to bring together the Left, secular and democratic forces prior to the elections,” CPI State secretary Dushyant Ojha said here on Friday briefing journalists.

“This government is in the clutches of the RSS. It is both communal and corrupt,” he charged. The party would fight for the land rights of the poor and the marginalised and concentrate in identified areas to work on a priority basis, he said. One of the resolutions passed at the convention reiterated the CPI’s demand for setting up a tribal autonomous council comprising the districts of Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara and parts of Sirohi and Chittorgarh. The convention sought proper implementation of the Forest Dwellers Act in the tribal areas of the State. The other resolutions sought installation of an oil refinery in western Rajasthan to make use of the oil discovered in Barmer, increase in the irrigation area, procurement of Rajasthan’s full share of water from inter-state river water agreements, adequate supply of power to farmers and compensation for crop damage in the recent frost. The convention, addressed by senior CPI leader Atul Kumar Anjaan and Amarjeet Kaur, member of the CPI Central Secretariat, was attended by 188 representatives from 20 districts of Rajasthan. It also elected a seven-member State Secretariat and a 25-member State executive. Mr. Ojha was re-elected State secretary while Rampal was elected treasurer.

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