Activists of the Communist Party of India (CPI) staged a demonstration at Tipu Sultan gardens near the office of the Deputy Commissioner here on Monday opposing the Union government's “anti-farmer and anti-worker” policies. Hundreds of activists with red flags and placards raised slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union government, holding them responsible for the increasing farmers’ suicides across the country.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hell-bent on serving the corporate class. In order to appease international and domestic business entities, he is making all-out efforts to create an investment-friendly environment in India sacrificing the interests of farmers and labourers. Implementation of anti-labour and anti-farmer policies assumed a new pace under Modi rule,” an agitating activist said during the protest.
The activists alleged that the Union government was spending more on publicity than on actual welfare of working people. “The government is ready to offer tax exemption of Rs. 64,000 crore for corporate companies, but it doesn’t have Rs.15,000 crore to waive farmers’ loans in nationalised banks. It has Rs. 250 crore for Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, but it doesn’t have Rs. 35 crore to pay safai karmacharis in Delhi. It has spent Rs. 500 crore for Yoga Day as most of the activists involved in the exercise were members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It has Rs. 700 crore to give Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Peetha for teaching yoga in schools, but it doesn’t have money to increase allocation for the education sector. It has Rs. 200 crore for Skill India advertisements, but doesn’t have Rs. 500 crore to offer scholarships to poor students,”said Bashumia, district secretary of the party.
Their main demands are: formulating a comprehensive agriculture policy that included crop policy for farmers, agriculture price policy and agriculture market policy; implementation of the M.S. Swaminathan Commission report that recommended scientific minimum support price (cost of cultivation plus 50 per cent profit) for all agriculture produce; restructuring the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act so as to help small farmers; speeding up all irrigation projects that were moving at a snail’s pace; government taking responsibility of education and health of farmers’ families; providing Rs. 3,000 old-age pension to all citizens above 60 years of age; and providing government job or quasi-government job for a family member of farmers who had committed suicide.
