A Parivartan Rally and meeting was organized by the CPI(ML) Koderma District Committee on 22 January 2019 to mark the 16th anniversary of the Markachho police firing. Reverberating with slogans like ‘Martyrs, we shall fulfill your dreams’ and ‘Raghuvar, your face has been exposed; you have turned out to be a land broker’, the rally marched to Shaheed Maidan where it culminated in a meeting.
The meeting began with hoisting of the flag, garlanding the portraits of Mahesh Singh, Ashok Yadav, Ratan Modi and student Mamta Kumari, and 2 minutes’ silence in honour of the martyrs.
CPI(ML) leader and former Bagodar MLA Vinod Singh said that the Raghuvar government has shattered the dreams of the people of Jharkhand. In the 18 years of its rule, the BJP government has done nothing except unleash repression on the people. They gave only parchas for land to poor farmers, but not the accompanying rights; and now they are hell bent on even snatching away peasants’ lands and handing them over to corporate houses. He said that the poor have been most adversely hit by spiralling prices. Today, thousands of poor do not have ration cards, and neither do they get rations. Prices of everything have gone up but MNREGA wages remain stagnant. They are even preparing to loot the money saved by the poor in banks and our fundamental Constitutional rights. He said that the people would avenge themselves on the BJP in the coming elections.
CPI(ML) leader and Rajdhanwar MLA Rajkumar Yadav said that the huge crowd that has poured into the Markachho Shaheed Maidan tells us that the people are not with the killers. He said that Babulal Marandi, responsible for the Markachho police firing, had directly helped the BJP in the previous elections. The people will no longer be fooled by him and know that it is only the CPI(ML) which can build a strong Left-democratic alternative in Jharkhand.
AIPWA leader Geeta Mandal said that the Raghuvar government’s ‘women empowerment’ is a deception. Today women are more unsafe than ever before, law and order in the State is in an abysmal condition, and the government is cheating half the population. We must change the ruling Central and State governments which are anti-women and anti-working class.
The Sankalp Sabha passed the following resolutions: expose the BJP-RSS in every Block on 25 January (Republic Day eve) under the slogan ‘Save Democracy-Save the Constitution’; and, to make the Young India Adhikar March in Delhi on 7 February.
