"ONE year of the Modi-led BJP regime at the centre has been a time of false assurances and broken promises," declared CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and AIKS general secretary Hannan Mollah in the impressive 4,000-strong public meeting at Nagpur on August 12, 2015. The public meeting was the culmination of the Vidarbha-level rally organised by the CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee as part of the Party's August campaign call to focus on the agrarian crisis and the scourge of peasant suicides, in which the Vidarbha region unfortunately leads the country.

Peasants, agricultural workers and especially unorganised workers from Nagpur, Wardha, Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Amravati, Buldana, Bhandara and Gondia districts had come for the rally in large numbers despite heavy rains. They included a large section of women - mainly anganwadi and Asha workers and mid-day meal scheme workers. The rally marched over three km for an hour, with hundreds of red flags, banners and placards and giving loud slogans. It was the biggest Vidarbha-level demonstration under the Red Flag in recent years.

On August 1, the campaign in Maharashtra began with the 10,000-strong rally in Mumbai from the rest of Maharashtra. A month earlier on July 11, a 3,000-strong rally was held in Wardha, also in the Vidarbha region, to mark the AIKS national council meeting that was held there.

Hannan Mollah continued by saying that Modi in his 439 election speeches had promised the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendation of fixing the MSP of crops at cost of production plus 50 percent profit. This assurance has been flagrantly violated. The peasants are denied loans from banks, pushing them into the grip of rapacious private money-lenders. On the other hand, agricultural bank loans are cornered by corporates, agri-businesses and landlords or rich peasants. Due to MNCs the cost of agricultural inputs is constantly rising. These are the real causes of debt-related farmer suicides. The AIKS just organised a dharna of suicide-affected peasant families before parliament to bring this grave issue into national focus.

Mollah came down heavily on the Modi regime on the issue of black money, corruption, price rise, unemployment, the draconian land acquisition ordinance, the reactionary move to dilute labour laws and the communal drive of the RSS-BJP-VHP and gave a call for worker-peasant unity to make the September 2 all India hartal against the BJP regime a massive success.

The rally was also addressed by CPI(M) central secretariat member Dr Ashok Dhawale, state secretariat members Manohar Muley, Udayan Sharma and Mariam Dhawale, state committee members Yashwant Zade, Dada Raipure, Shankarrao Danav and Ramesh Dahiwade, while Nagpur district secretary Amrut Meshram made the introductory remarks. The CPI(M) Nagpur district committee had made excellent arrangements for this rally.