The day-and-night agitation organised by the United Democratic Front in front of the Secretariat and 12 Collectorates concluded on Friday morning, with leaders giving a call for a long-drawn struggle against the Central and State governments’ anti-people policies.
The formal conclusion of the agitation was led by former Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Thennala Balakrishna Pillai here, and other senior leaders in the districts.
Addressing the a sizeable turnout of UDF workers, Mr. Pillai said the Modi government’s policies were pushing the people into a major economic crisis. The repeated statements by Central ministers indicated that the Modi government benefited only the affluent sections of society.
The State government, on the other hand, was pandering to the interests of vested lobbies in such diverse areas as liquor and private self-financing institutions.
Its excise policy would virtually drown the State in liquor. The portals of higher education had gone out of the grasp of the economically and socially weaker sections of society, Mr. Pillai said.
UDF leaders asserted that the agitation had succeeded in reflecting the apprehensions of the people of the State about the anti-people policies and that it was unfortunate that the Central and State governments were doing nothing to lighten their burden and misery.
The UDF deployed many of its second-line leadership for the conclusion function of the agitations across the districts.
All out effort
The UDF leaders went all out to make the agitation a success against the backdrop of the Vengara byelection and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s attempt to change the contours of politics in Kerala, marked by the Janaraksha Yatra of the party’s State president Kummanam Rajasekharan.
“The agitation is once again a reminder to the BJP that it has no political space in Kerala,” leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala said.
