Left uses Khammam to fulfil AP cadre demands
The Khammam killings seem to have opened a Pandora’s box on land-related issues, with the Left’s central leadership mounting pressure on the Congress to meet the demands of the Andhra Pradesh comrades.
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: The Khammam killings seem to have opened a Pandora’s box on land-related issues, with the Left’s central leadership mounting pressure on the Congress to meet the demands of the Andhra Pradesh comrades.
CPM polit bureau member Sitaram Yechury is understood to have conveyed his party’s wish list on the land issue to the political secretary to Congress president Ahmed Patel on Tuesday. Andhra Pradesh Leftists, who have launched an agitation focusing on “land for the poor”, are demanding that the government refrain from tampering with the Assignment Land Act of 1977, which was aimed at protecting the landless by allotting them government land.
The Left is accusing the state government of taking away land from the poor and reselling it to industrial houses. Ironically, the Left is now fighting against the Congress government in the state over “dilution” of schemes which were initially launched by the Congress itself.
The Left wants the government to implement land reforms and set up a land reforms commission to identify violations of the Land Assignment Act. It has demanded that an independent land reforms ministry be set up. Besides this, it has alleged loopholes in the Indiramma Scheme, launched by the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy government last year to provide basic amenities to one-third of villages and one-third of wards in the urban areas in the state, and wants the government to appoint an ombudsman.
Mr Yechury had demanded the resignation of chief minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy owing moral responsibility for the killing of 8 in police firing on Saturday during his visit to Mudigonda village during a land agitation. However, CPI, has steered clear of the oust YSR call, as the party is of the view that this would hinder the Left’s main cause on land issues in the state. The CPI’s central secretariat is meeting on August 8 to discuss the land issue.
The CPM had on Monday written to AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh accusing the Congress of a “misinformation campaign” by alleging that Maoists had sneaked into the land movement.
CPM polit bureau member Sitaram Yechury is understood to have conveyed his party’s wish list on the land issue to the political secretary to Congress president Ahmed Patel on Tuesday. Andhra Pradesh Leftists, who have launched an agitation focusing on “land for the poor”, are demanding that the government refrain from tampering with the Assignment Land Act of 1977, which was aimed at protecting the landless by allotting them government land.
The Left is accusing the state government of taking away land from the poor and reselling it to industrial houses. Ironically, the Left is now fighting against the Congress government in the state over “dilution” of schemes which were initially launched by the Congress itself.
The Left wants the government to implement land reforms and set up a land reforms commission to identify violations of the Land Assignment Act. It has demanded that an independent land reforms ministry be set up. Besides this, it has alleged loopholes in the Indiramma Scheme, launched by the Y S Rajasekhar Reddy government last year to provide basic amenities to one-third of villages and one-third of wards in the urban areas in the state, and wants the government to appoint an ombudsman.
Mr Yechury had demanded the resignation of chief minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy owing moral responsibility for the killing of 8 in police firing on Saturday during his visit to Mudigonda village during a land agitation. However, CPI, has steered clear of the oust YSR call, as the party is of the view that this would hinder the Left’s main cause on land issues in the state. The CPI’s central secretariat is meeting on August 8 to discuss the land issue.
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Both CPM and CPI have held the chief minister responsible for the firing in Khammam district and decided to intensify the land struggle in the state.The CPM had on Monday written to AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh accusing the Congress of a “misinformation campaign” by alleging that Maoists had sneaked into the land movement.
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