Describing the coming State Assembly elections as a “farce conducted to strengthen the rule of the exploiting classes,” the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) has called on voters to boycott the polls.
West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry are scheduled to go to the polls between April 13 and May 10 this year. The results will be declared on May 13.
In a press release signed by central committee spokesperson Abhay, the Maoists said there was little difference between the incumbent and opposition parties and claimed that the ‘real alternative is [for the Maoists] to expand militarily and in a more organised manner.'
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Despite media reports to the contrary, the Maoists also sought to distance themselves from the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, claiming that “her [Mamata Banerjee's] rule…would be a continuation of the pro-feudal, pro-corporate…polices implemented by all ruling parties.”
The Election Commission has announced the deployment of central paramilitary troops in sensitive poll booths to ensure that elections were not marred by violence.
In a separate statement issued by Gudsa Usendi, the spokesperson for the Dandakarayana Special Zonal Committee of the CPI (Maoist), the Maoists called a 48-hour ban on April 16 and 17 in the southern districts of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district.
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According to the statement, the bandh was to highlight the plight of the villages of Tarmetla, Morpalli and Timapuram in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, where security forces indulged in “arson, sexual assault and extra-judicial killings” during the course of an anti-Maoist operation in March.