CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat has given a call for continuing the united struggle of the land oustees and other people being affected by the blatant and naked aggression and coercion of the K Chandrasekhar Rao government in Telangana to dispossess them of more than four lakh acres of land. A massive dharna was organised by the struggle committee of land oustees of Telangana at Indira Park in Hyderabad on July 26 as a part of the ongoing struggle against the forcible and illegal acquisition of lands, demanding cancellation of  the controversial Government Order No. 123 and implementation of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

Addressing a meeting of the oustees, Karat strongly condemned the brutal lathicharge and firing in the air by the police during protest against illegal and coercive land acquisition under Mallannasagar reservoir on Medak-Karimnagar national highway on July 24. She said the police action was a shameful, dictatorial and authoritarian act, and termed Chandrasekhar Rao as the only chief minister who trained the guns of his police on farmers, oustees and other people of his own constituency. Criticising the chief minister for constructing a wall of police around his constituency Gazwel to suppress the struggle of the land oustees, she asked him as to how many such walls he would construct all over Telangana. Karat demanded the government pay compensation to the victims and suspend the DSP and other police officers responsible and warned that such authoritarian and dictatorial acts cannot deter the people on a path of struggle to protect their rights. She said that proper consultation with farmers and assessment of social impact would ensure maximum benefit and minimum damage under any project.

Karat asked the chief minister to change his approach for acquiring lakhs of acres of land illegally and castigated him for telling blatant lies that the opposition parties have hatched a conspiracy and are instigating the oustees and farmers against acquisition of lands for projects and industries. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, having failed in his attempts to dilute the provisions of the 2013 Act, which defend the rights of farmers, Adivasis, women, Dalits and the landless poor to some extent, has been trying to  have his way through the backdoor strategy of encouraging chief ministers of different states to circumvent the provisions of the Act, Karat said. Terming such chief ministers as Modi’s junior partners and captains of backdoor, she said that Chandrasekhar Rao is acting as a representative of Modi in Telangana by bringing in the illegal GO. BJP-ruled states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand have already brought about amendments diluting the rights of farmers and Adivasis, she said. Though Modi has been calling himself Pradhan Sevak of India, he is the Pradhan Sevak of corporates, capitalists and real estate mafia of the country who are celebrating on the occasion of completion of 25 years of implementation of neo-liberal reforms in the country, she said and made it clear that these reforms have not benefited the common people and the poor.

CPI(M) state secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram asserted that threats from the ruling dispensation would not deter the Party. Lashing out at the government for trying to create terror and fear to suppress the struggle of the land oustees and other affected people, Veerabhadram, a former MP and MLA, said that a situation has been created by the government that, even as the secretary of a state committee of a national party, he has to go incognito to meet the victims of the terror perpetrated by what he termed a dictatorial and killer government.  He made it clear that seeing the struggle of the land oustees as an issue of TRS versus the opposition is wrong and that the KCR government is being criticised because it is violating the law. CPI state secretary Chada Venkat Reddy asserted that the struggle should continue till justice is done to the oustees. He warned that the injustice being done to the farmers all in the name of projects would not be tolerated. Justice B Chandra Kumar, a retired judge of the High Court, has asserted that it is a struggle of the farmers for their sustenance and livelihood, not a conspiracy of the opposition as falsely alleged by the minister for irrigation. Vice president of All India Kisan Sabha Sarampally Mallareddy, CPI(M) MLA Sunnam Rajaiah, secretary of Nalgonda district committee of the CPI(M) J Ranga Reddy, assistant secretary of the state unit of CPI(ML New Democracy) P Ranga Rao, former MP S Ramachandra Reddy, Prof. P L Vishweswar Rao of Aam Aadmi Party, Sankar of DBF, leaders of Telangana Girijana Sangham Dharma Naik and T Bhimrao, B Chandra Reddy, general secretary of Telangana Rythu Sangham, M Venkateswarlu, general secretary of Telangana Agricultural Workers’ Union, and other leaders participated in the programme.

Lathicharge on Mallannasagar Oustees

THE police resorted to indiscriminate lathicharge on farmers and others agitating against land acquisition for Mallannasagar reservoir under GO 123 and demanding implementation of the central Act, 2013 in Medak district on July 24.  Farmers, women, children and leaders of mass organisations were seriously injured in the lathicharge. The police even fired tear gas shells and fired two rounds into the air.  As a part and parcel of their ongoing agitation, when land oustees, including farmers and women, from different villages came to Rajiv Gandhi National Highway to stage dharna peacefully, the police tried to obstruct them and resorted to lathicharge three times on two occasions.  Both sides pelted stones on each other. Several injured people were shifted to the Government Hospital at Gazwel.

The attempts of the TRS government to suppress the agitation of land oustees and the brutal lathicharge were strongly condemned by the CPI(M), CPI, Congress, TDP and other opposition parties and several mass organisations.  Telangana state committee of the CPI(M), in a statement, strongly condemned the illegal and anti-democratic acts of the TRS government on the land oustees of Mallannasagar area and trampling under foot their legal rights.  It accused the minister for irrigation, Harish Rao, of instigating the police and revenue officials to resort to lathicharge on the oustees agitating peacefully against the minister’s dishonest propaganda. The CPI(M) accused the police of resorting to indiscriminate lathicharge and highhandedness even on women and children, resulting in injuries to about 200 people. It gave a call for protests all over the state against the lathicharge. Tammineni Veerabhadram, secretary of Telangana state committee of the CPI(M), expressed shock and serious concern over the lathicharge and warned the government that the Telangana people would not tolerate the attempts of the government to suppress the resentment of the people through the police force.  State secretariat member of the CPI(M) B Venkat and state committee member T Sagar, who are convener and co-convener of struggle committee of land oustees of Telangana, rushed from Hyderabad and met the land oustees in police custody and demanded Harish Rao to tender unconditional apology and suspension of the DSP for creating an atmosphere of terror in the villages.

On the call given by the opposition parties, bandh was observed in Medak district on July 25 protesting against the lathicharge.