IN Puducherry, Bharatiya Janata Party had an electoral alliance with N R Congress and won the election and formed a coalition government. Ever since the formation of coalition government, the BJP exhibits its big brother attitude with N R Congress. It is not easily allowing its leading partner to declare any people welfare measure for Puducherry.

Instead, the BJP high command decides to treat the union territory of Puducherry government and its people as guinea pigs to experiment its corporate communal agenda one by one with the help of its constitutional executive agent lieutenant governors. The first anti-people measure by the BJP is the closure of ration shops throughout the state by assuring people that it will deposit equivalent money in every one’s bank account directly, instead of supplying essential commodities through ration shops. Total closure of ration shops is not done in any of the states ruled by the BJP except in Puducherry state. The state unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) conducted several agitations including a massive rally on August 2, 2022 in Puducherry. People gathered at the Nehru Street and laid siege on the office of the chief secretary of Puducherry government under the leadership of G Ramakrishnan, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member.

 Knowing the overwhelming protest led by CPI(M) with people’s support, the chief secretary of Puducherry assured to do the needful and intimated about the vibrant protest of Puducherry people to his higher ups. Sai Saravanan, minister of civil supplies declared that, all ration shops in the state will be opened in a month’s time and all the essential commodities will be distributed to the people through ration shops. An amount of Rs 600 per month for red ration card holders and Rs 300 per month for the yellow card holders was immediately deposited in the bank account of the people.

The next sinister move of the BJP manifested in the education department. It coercively compelled its alliance partner to implement the National Education Policy in Puducherry state. This policy is being carried out in Puducherry without consulting the stakeholders like students, teachers, schools and college authorities. The CBSC syllabus has been introduced in all government schools with English as medium of instruction and Tamil language as optional. The education minister currently assured that Tamil would be a compulsory language, which may not be everlasting. Students will have to face board examinations at 3rd, 5th and 8th standards and semester examinations from 9th standard which will cause massive dropouts of poor students. The mid-day meal scheme once fairly ran by the education department was suddenly handed over to a private contractor Akshaya Patra, which is an RSS linked outfit. The meals supplied by Akshaya Patra are of low quality which intentionally skips egg, onion and garlic. The CPI(M) state unit is again immersed in an effective fight against the implementation of National Education Policy and abrupt handing over of mid-day meal scheme to the private contractor. After several meetings, demonstrations and rallies, a complete siege was laid to the education department under the leadership of P Shanmugham, CPI(M) Central Committee member. The protest against the onslaught with other political parties is still going on.

The three large textile mills namely Anglo-French Textile Mill, Sudeshi Mill and Bharathi Mill are non-functioning for several years. Instead of rejuvenating and reopening these mills to provide employment opportunities to the people of Puducherry, the BJP-NR Congress government declared the permanent closure of mills. Several co-operative mills, societies and institutions like PASIC and Amuthasurabi are all non-functional under this Puducherry government. All most all the employees working in cooperative sector like PASIC, POPSCO, Amuthasurabi, Pontex, Ponfals etc are working without wages for almost three years. No tangible efforts have been made to set them in order and mitigate the sufferings of the labourers.

The next corporate cum hindutuva agenda by the NR Congress and BJP government is privatisation of the electricity department. About 20,000 crore rupees worth electricity department assets of substations, building, lands and networks are to be handed over to private owners at a meagre amount. By this attempt, hereafter providing electricity is not a service, and it is going to be a commercial one. Hence, the electricity charges will be raising to any height which in turn would increase the suffering of people. The concessional tariff of electricity to poor and downtrodden people, small scale industries, artisans and agriculture will be cut off by profit mongering private capitalists. To help its corporate accomplice, the NR-BJP government is spending around Rs 400 crores to install smart electricity meters in every home in Puducherry state and is going to recover the amount every month as meter rent. After installation of these smart meters, the electricity charges will be recovered from people at an exorbitant rate by introducing peak hour, semi peak hour and normal hour charges.  

Instead of existing post-paid electricity bills, only pre-paid electricity bills will be issued. If bill payment is not made in time, electric supply to that customer will be suddenly cut off without notice. The repairing of these meters in future will be of customer’s concern. The CPI(M) and its mass organisations widely propagated the ill effects of privatisation of Puducherry electricity department among the people. They also collected one lakh signatures in a campaign explaining the dangers of privatisation of electricity, among the public and dignitaries of Puducherry. At the culmination of the protest, a massive rally of all sections of people was conducted on December 13, 2023 and the signed letters received from the people were submitted to the chief minister of Puducherry at the end of the rally.

Taking a step further, a massive rally braving the torrential rain on January 8, 2024 in Puducherry, comprising people from Mahe, Karaikkal, Yanam and Puducherry was conducted under the leadership of G Ramakrishnan,  and M V Jeyarajan (Kannur district secretary of CPI(M) Kerala) insisting the reopening of ration shops, withdrawal of the decision of privatisation of power sector, demand for holding local body elections, reopening of textile mills and sugar mills immediately  and early completion of fishing harbour construction in Mahe etc. The Party leadership declared that if the reopening of ration shops is delayed further, a lasting siege will be conducted until the complete settlement of the burning issue.

Each and every anti-people move of the corporate cum hindutva agenda of BJP-NR Congress alliance government will be vehemently opposed by the people of Puducherry. The BJP-NR Congress government should bear in mind that the people of Puducherry state will not remain calm, enduring sufferings as guinea pigs and they will ferociously retort in the forthcoming days.