CPI(M) POLIT Bureau Member, Prakash Karat called upon the people to come forward to fight against the anti-people policies of the centre, which are assaulting democracy and democratic rights as well as weakening the rights of the states.

Prakash Karat was speaking at a mammoth meeting held at Chennai on September 5, as a conclusion of a week-long campaign organised by the Tamil Nadu state committee across the state with a slogan ‘’ Remove the darkness in India, Put an end to Modi’s Rule!”

During this week-long campaign about 5,000 squads of people visited houses and shops across the state with a pamphlet prepared exclusively for this campaign. They highlighted the atrocities unleashed upon the people during the last eight years of Modi rule. This rule has fattened the crony capitalists through various economic policies of the centre.  The campaign was well received by the people across the state. The Party cadres were also enthused over the response from the people of all walks of life.

While addressing the meeting, Prakash Karat pointed out that the livelihoods of the people were severely affected due to price rise and inflation. The centre’s harsh tax regime was the reason for such a situation. Severe tax burdens are being imposed upon the common people in order to adjust the loss made due to tax relief given to corporate and big capitalists over the years. Such a tax regime is based upon class discrimination and it reduces tax for the rich and imposes more tax upon the poor.

 Karat also pointed out that when unemployment and price rise combine together, the real sufferers are the working people. It is not because of their fate but because of the wrong policies of the government as well as the pro- corporate policies. Hence, he called upon the people to come forward to fight against the anti-people policies of the government as well as to safeguard the democratic rights and ethos of this country, secularism, pluralism etc.

CPI(M) Tamil Nadu state secretary, K Balakrishnan, while speaking on this occasion reminded the people that BJP-RSS is working overtime to create religious riots and attack religious minorities on various pretexts. While commenting on the recent anti-communist rhetoric made in Kerala by the union home minister, Amit Shah, he said that history has proved again and again on the contrary. When the communists were fighting against feudalism in East Thanjavur, the then Madras government sought the help of the Malabar police to crush the movement. But only those who sought to crush the communists were decimated beyond recognition by the people. He also called upon the people to unite as one force to defeat the bomb culture and communal politics unleashed by the BJP-RSS parivar and defend the Indian constitution and retrieve the rights of the states.

While speaking on this occasion, CPI(M) Polit Bureau Member, G Ramakrishnan pointed out that opposition parties are not allowed to speak in Lok Sabha. The voices of opposition are being scuttled. Democracy, secularism, federalism and self-sufficiency are being destroyed by the current dispensation, he said. As the Modi government is destroying the constitutional framework, he pointed out that it is the responsibility of the people of India to strengthen the Left parties in order to safeguard the Indian constitution, democracy and people’s unity.