THE 23rd Party Congress has stressed upon and called on the rank and file to take up local issues and ensure the participation of Party members to have a live connection with the masses. Moving forward in that direction, the Andhra Pradesh state committee met on April 16 and 17 and chalked out a programme called ‘Janam Kosam CPI(M)’, or CPI(M) for people. This activity has been taken up in three phases and for 40 days.

The first was the preparatory phase, which focused on preparing the party committees and branches. Extended meetings were held at district and mandal/town levels, and teams were formed and oriented with the task.

INTINTIKI CPI(M)

The second phase was called ‘Intintiki CPI(M)’, or CPI(M) meets every household, in which all the teams had to go and meet people in their households in residential areas. The approach was not to go with a fixed questionnaire or a prefixed mindset but to engage in conversation with the people and figure out the issues that came up during the discussions. Comrades were asked to probe deeper once clarity on their issues was evident. This effort helped and paved the way to understand the mood and concerns of the people along with their issues. A team member was asked to document the opinions and issues faced by the people. An app was developed for this purpose and was used to capture the information and analysis. Consolidating all these issues, mass representations were made at the grama/ward-sachivalayas (administrative blocks by the government at the village/ward level). There have been instances where issues were resolved instantaneously by the administration with people insisting on them under our leadership. In this phase, from 27 districts in 456 mandals, 3,700 villages, 87 towns and 1,291 wards, our comrades could meet 6.25 lakh households and identify their issues. On identifying the pressing needs of the people and chalking out demands, campaigns were held to prepare them for further agitation.

The Party cadre identified two types of issues in this house-to-house campaign. The first is linked directly with the government policies such as rising prices, unemployment, user charges in the form of garbage tax etc., increase in sand prices, hike in electricity tariff, incomplete houses etc. Another set of issues is local in nature, such as drinking water, drainage and sewerage lines, road repair, stopping of welfare schemes, house pattas, etc.

MASSIVE DHARNAS HELD

In the third phase, there were massive dharnas held in front of mandal revenue (tehsil) offices. Dharnas were held in two district centres on July 4 and in 25 district centres on July 11. These dharnas saw the participation of 25,000 people despite heavy rains. Our comrades were well received by the people, and people shared their agony, told their problems and expressed their anger towards the government on specific issues. The response from the people and their anger is a reflection of the current economic and political situation’s impact on them.

The economic grief faced by the people as a consequence of the Covid crisis was mitigated to an extent through the state government's DBT schemes. During this period, the people received no aid/help from the central government. In addition, measures like removal of concessions in railway fares and increasing the fares, cuts in MNREGA, etc., created heartburn among the people. The subsequent multiple hikes in gas, petrol and diesel prices after the Corona slowdown have further aggravated the heartburn of the people. Essential commodity prices like edible oils have doubled, and the hike in cement and steel prices and the cost of sand in Andhra have disrupted employment in the construction industry. The growth of online businesses on essential commodities during the pandemic and its continuation in the later period had a considerable impact on small businesses. The reduction in procurements by FCI, the increase in fertilizer and pesticide prices, and the fall in prices of agricultural produce in the open markets have made the peasantry bankrupt. During this period, there is an increase in farmer suicides, particularly that of tenancy farmers. Due to the crisis in agriculture, people could not cultivate 10 lakh acres and left them barren. Till now, the centre did not abide by the promises made during the AP Reorganisation Act, some of the crucial and sentimental issues like special category status, funding the capital development and the Polavaram irrigation project is still unfulfilled. The anger further intensified with the decision to privatise the prestigious Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. People see it as a betrayal of Andhra Pradesh.

In this background, the ruling YSRCP and the main opposition TDP, rather than fighting the central government, colluded with it. All the three regional parties in AP -- YSRCP, TDP and Jana Sena -- which have campaigned and portrayed themselves as champions of special category status, have now begun shielding the BJP in the state and at the centre. Utilising this situation, BJP is aggressively pursuing its agenda and trying to make inroads. In the run-up to the elections of 2019, Jagan Mohan Reddy promised to achieve special status if he got 25 MP seats but is now completely silent on the issue. He is ensuring that his party MPs in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha vote for all the anti-people policies and bills, including the three farm laws. It is not just by supporting in the parliament but now claiming to be the champions in implementing the neo-liberal policies. They claim to be at par or ahead in implementing the central government policies in the aspects of ease of doing business and curbing the workers' rights. They have completed framing the rules for implementing the unified labour code and have started executing them much ahead of other states. The New Education Policy of the Centre has been implemented in the state, and thereby it had a very nasty impact on the closure of 5,200 schools in the state. This change is being made by merging classes from three and above with high schools within a distance of three km.

As a consequence, primary schools are being merged with nearby anganwadis, which dissuades students under class 5 from going to schools far from their living places. In addition, they are preparing the ground for the closure of 500 schools in the same process. With this measure of merging, there are 50,000 vacancies in the state, and the government is now showing a surplus of 18,000 teachers in the state.

FINANCIAL SITUATION IN DOLDRUMS, BURDENS ON PEOPLE

The state government’s financial situation being in the doldrums, it approached the centre seeking permission to go for raising loans in the open market. While permitting the state government, the central government has imposed conditions on the state government and allowed to increase the fiscal deficit from 3-5 per cent. The prime condition is installing smart electrical meters to agriculture pump sets. Free power to agriculture will meet a fate similar to that of gas subsidy. The change in the property tax, which was based on the rent received from the asset, has now been changed to that dependent on the valuation of the property. This has increased the tax burden on the people. A new type of user charge has been introduced, and the most striking is the garbage tax, which has become the reason for people's anger against the state government.

On the one hand, while implementing the central government policies, the state government is imposing new burdens on the people to increase its revenues. There is an increase in electricity tariff rates up to 30-40 per cent, leading to an additional burden of Rs 3,500 crore. The government has introduced true-up charges where there is an extra burden on people to pay for the electricity producers retrospectively. There is a hike in bus fares which led to a burden of Rs 2,300 crore in two spells in a period of two months. The sand production has got into the hands of the sand mafia in the state held mainly by the satraps of the ruling party MLAs, which has resulted in the hike of sand prices by three times. The previous government constructed group housing for the people under TIDCO, where the government gave a matching grant after people paid a deposit of up to Rs 1 lakh. At the same time, the rest was provided through bank loans. In the last three years, all the construction of the houses was halted, and the government did not hand over the completed houses. While not even being able to occupy these houses, people are now receiving notices from the banks to pay interest and EMI as the grace period of three years is over. The current government has started a new scheme under the name JaganannaIlluPathakam, which has allotted one cent of land in urban areas and one-and-a-half cents in villages to the people. There has been massive corruption through the change of hands of money in the procurement/acquisition of lands. It made an initial promise of building houses in the land allotted, later went back and said they would provide assistance with raw materials and further went back and said that the government shall give Rs 1.8 lakh to every household to build their house or to the contractor. The cost of constructing a pukka house is close to Rs 6 lakh. Now the government is threatening people to take the land back if the house is not built. Almost 80 per cent of the houses are in the beginning stages of the foundation. They were supposed to be completed by December 2021, but till now, only 2.5 per cent of the houses have been completed. In the places where contractors are building the houses, they are substandard. People in thousands of households in urban areas have lived for more than three decades without pattas. This was one of the election promises given by Jagan Mohan Reddy during his padayatras. In addition, there were promises of good roads, proper sewerage systems, drinking water, etc. Nothing has been met so far. For all the medical treatment procedures that would be above Rs 1,000, the government has said they shall be covered under the Arogyasree scheme. This is practically not being implemented as there are huge pending dues the government has to pay to the hospitals.

SOCIAL WELFARE SCHEMES SKEWED

The strength of Jagan Mohan Reddy's rule was various welfare schemes under the navaratnas announced by him. The cut in the schemes has begun. The age limit for availing pension for single women has been increased to 50 from 35 years. The Amma Vodi scheme has been limited to only one child in the family, that too there is a cut of Rs 2,000 in the name of maintenance of schools. If any household consumes 300 units of power, there is a removal from welfare schemes, including old age pensions. Those who have not paid the garbage tax are directly cut off from the DBT. In addition, if there is any kind of beneficiary from any of the schemes in the household, the physically challenged are the worst hit, with their names being removed from DBT.

In this situation, there is a rise in people’s dissatisfaction with the government led by Jagan Mohan Reddy. It is being reflected in various forms of the government. When the ruling party MLAs took up a political campaign of meeting every household, the anger was visible.

It is in this backdrop that there was a good response to our campaign. The majority of Party members in almost 80 per cent of Party units participated in this campaign.

We learned through this campaign that even though people are angry about these issues, there are illusions that the ruling party shall resolve them. And also, people are facing pressure from local volunteers(government) in the form of warnings and diktats about the stoppage of schemes if they participate in any agitations led by CPI(M). Even facing pressure, people came out to join in "CPI(M) for People" campaign.

Although the next assembly election in the state is due in 2024, the ruling and main opposition parties have almost made it to be all about elections. Their statements and tours are centred around it. With the role being played by these parties, the betrayal of the state by the BJP is being sidelined. The basic people's issues are not taking centre stage. It is by abuses and counter-abuses that the environment in the state is being vitiated whereby people's issues do not see the light of the day. Under these circumstances, the CPI(M) is trying to forge an alliance of Left and democratic forces and mobilise people around mass issues. The CPI(M) is forging ahead with a call to rally the Left and democratic forces based on alternative policies. Based on the experience of our campaign and issues found at the grassroots, the CPI(M) in AP is bracing its primary units to achieve the demands and resolve the issues faced by the people.