On May Day, CPI(ML) and AICCTU held a ‘Workers’ Respect Rally’ (Mazdoor Swabhimaan Rally) and mass meeting. Around 1000 workers marched in the Rally, which started at Ghadi Chowk, Supela an culminated in a mass meeting at Ravan Bhata. In preparation for the Rally, around 2000 leaflets were distributed in a mass contact drive and meetings of workers organised.
Sanitation workers, of whom a large number were women, had a significant presence in the Rally. The mass meeting was addressed by Bhimrao Bagade and A G Qureshi of the Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha, Comrades Adalat Ali, Jayprakash Nair, Shivkumar Prasad, Ashok Miri of the CPI(ML) and AICCTU and Poonam Sahu of AIPWA, while the meeting was conducted by Shyamlal Sahu.
The meeting resolved to intensify the struggles against the government for violation of labour laws and severe exploitation of contract workers. Speakers demanded an end to the contract system and BPL cards for all contract workers. Comrades Tulsi Devdas and J P Nair sang revolutionary songs.
Similar programmes, attended by 100-150 workers, were held at stone quarries of Bastar and Raipur also.
On 6 May, CPI(ML) observed the 19th martyrdom day of Comrade Daraswam Sahu at Lal Khadan, Bilaspur. A rally and meeting were held at the village. The meeting was presided over by Comrade Darasram Sahu’s wife Sushila Bai, and the chief guest was CPI(ML) State Secretary Brijendra Tiwari. A photograph of Comrade Darasram Sahu was garlanded and the party flag hoisted in the martyred comrade’s memory. The meeting was conducted by district secretary Comrade Lalan Ram. Comrade J P Nair presented revolutionary songs on the occasion. Comrades Brijendra Tiwari, Adalat Ali, Shivkumar Prasad, Shyamlal Sahu of CPI(ML) as well as A G Qureshi of the CMM addressed the meeting. The meeting stressed the need to organise agricultural workers to complete Darasram Sahu’s unfilled tasks. 15 sanitation workers from Bhilai also took part in the meeting.
A 2-member fact-finding team of the CPI(ML) comprising Comrades Brijendra Tiwari and Ashok Miri investigated the clash between workers of the Lohia Paper Company and villagers of Akoli village of Durg district. The team members spoke with factory workers as well as villagers. The clash was the result of a deliberate attempt to fan up tension between local villagers against ‘outsider’ workers. The CPI(ML) team found that pollutants from the factory were being allowed to flow into the village. Only 4 men and 2 women from the village are employed in the factory. Workers in the factory are ill-paid and overworked. The CPI(ML) team demanded that work be provided under NREGA for the workers, measures be taken to curb the pollution, arrested villagers be released, and local villagers too be provided employment in the factory. The team also demanded hat labour laws be implemented strictly in the factory.
The CPI(ML) has actively supported the struggle of residents of Gori village, Dhamdaha block, Durg district, against land grab for a liquor factory. Villagers have been protesting since April against the forcible and fraudulent grab of 50 acres of arable land for a liquor factory. The Sarpanch and janpad member had given the NOC for land acquisition without convening a gram sabha meeting, and the villagers were infuriated at this betrayal. BJP and Congress are both supporting the liquor factory project. Workers at Bhilai Steel Plant who hail from the village contacted our party and party activists attended a large rally of villagers on 30 April. Finally after a long protest, a gram sabha was convened by the villagers themselves on 19 May (Comrades Brijendra Tiwari and Shyamlal Sahu were also present in solidarity), and forced reluctant police officials and the janpad member to attend the sabha, and they publicly accepted their fault and gave an undertaking in writing that they would intimate the Collector that the NOC given earlier was false. The protest will continue till the land acquition is withdrawn.
