(Statement issued by CPI(ML) Liberation, Communist Party Marxist (Punjab), Lal Nishan Party (Leninist), Maharashtra, Left Coordination Committee, Kerala on 18 July 2010, at New Delhi)

Four organizations of the Left - CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra, and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala – held a meeting in Delhi on 17 July 2010, to discuss the need for a struggling Left platform to give voice to the growing popular anger against ruling class policies in the wake of steep price rise, acute agrarian crisis, massive unemployment, state repression and the all-out attack on workers’ rights and civil liberties.

The meeting was held at the Central Office of the CPI(ML) Liberation. Participants included a delegation of the CPI(ML) led by Politbureau member Comrade Ramji Rai, and Central Committee members Comrades Swapan Mukherjee and V Shankar; Comrade Mangat Ram Pasla, General Secretary of the CPM (Punjab) and well as Comrade Harkamal Singh, State Secretariat member of the CPM (Punjab); Comrade Bhimrao Bansode, Secretary, and Uday Bhatt, Secretariat Member of the Lal Nishan Party (Leninist); and leaders of the Left Coordination Committee (Kerala) Comrade Azad, Comrade Chandrashekharan, Comrade Murali, Comrade Hariharan and Comrade Kumarankutty.

At the meeting, the four groups have decided to hold a National Convention on 11 August in the National Capital on the burning issues facing the people of this country. The National Convention will be held with a view to launching an All India Left Coordination to promote united struggles and interventions by fighting Left forces in the days to come.

Leaders of the four parties held the UPA Government’s policies of deregulating prices of petrol and diesel directly responsible for intensifying the assault of price rise on the country’s common people. In recent times, there have been several instances of powerful protest by people against price rise and such manifestations of people’s anger against callous and anti-people ruling class policies are bound to intensify in the times to come.

The four parties condemned the recent police firing on protestors against land acquisition for a power plant in Sompeta (Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh), in which four protestors were killed. The Sompeta firing is the latest in a long line of instances (such as at Kalinganagar, Jagatsinghpur, Singur, Nandigram, Dadri) where governments of various hues have responded to protests against land grab with brutal repression by batons and bullets.

The parties also deplored the decision of the Nagpur High Court to commute the sentences of those convicted for the heinous massacre of a Dalit family at Khairlanji; in particular the refusal of the court to recognise the crime as an atrocity against Dalits.

The four parties expressed deep concern at the spate of killings of civilian Kashmiri protestors by armed forces. The protestors were only exercising their basic right to protest against excesses such as fake encounters and killing of children in firing by CRPF. The four parties demanded withdrawal of troops from Kashmir and lifting of all bans and other forms of suppression of the basic rights of the Kashmiri people.

The four parties also decided to extend support to the All India Industrial Strike on 7 September (mainly on the burning issues of price rise, violation of labour laws and attacks on workers’ rights) declared by a range of Central Trade Unions.