The CITU claims 5 lakh peasants and workers will march to Ramlila maidan, Delhi on Wednesday to oppose the acts of the Narendra Modi government. The protesters feel that the government doesn't back the labourers and peasants of the country.
On August 9, AIKS took part in a 'jail bharo andolan', that time, they wanted the government to meet recommendations of the National Commission on Farmers. These included a minimum support price or MSP based on the formula of C2+50 percent; a favourable procurement policy to ensure that farmers actually receive the MSP and increase mass consumption through the effective implementation of the Food Security Act. In March this year, thousands of farmers under the AIKS marched to Mumbai demanding farm loan waivers.
Members of the All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU), All India Kisan Sabha and Centre of Indian Trade Unions will be coming together for the protest rally. The congregation wants to draw centre's attention to problems like rising prices, deepening rural distress, rising unemployment, and the government’s failure to offer remunerative prices for agricultural produce. Ramlila maidan is one of the eight venues where workers and farmers will meet.
AIKS president Ashok Dhawale in his official note on the AIKS website writes, “ The Delhi Rally will also hit out strongly at the communal agenda and authoritarian drive of the Modi regime. It will condemn the serial mob lynching and moral policing and the killing of progressive intellectuals in which the Hindutva terrorist outfit Sanatan Sanstha is on the mat.”
The AIKS on their Twitter page has tweeted images of farmers and workers commencing their journey to Delhi from various parts of the nation.
Swaroop K, CV Devadasan, Kishore & Ajoy, members of #AIKS started from Palakkad on 29 AUG by bike to Delhi to attend the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Rally on 5 SEP. The Bike Yatra was flagged off by C.K.Rajendran, AIKS leader & CPI(M) Palakkad district Secretary. @cpimspeak pic.twitter.com/IqSAYzgjS1
— AIKS (@KisanSabha) August 29, 2018
CPI(M) too, has tweeted about the event.
Tomorrow a historic rally of industrial workers, farmers & agricultural labourers will storm the country’s Capital demanding better wages, more jobs, better prices for farm produce, end to privatisation, stopping changes in labour laws, ending the contract labour system. pic.twitter.com/8PpWtFpbtq
— CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) September 4, 2018
In 2015, a joint platform called the Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan (BAA) was formed during the successful struggle against the Land Acquisition Ordinance. It was withdrawn after state-level agitations and rallies in Delhi against the Ordinance and with intervention by the Left and other opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha. The BAA has since been fighting on issues like killing of farmers by gau rakshaks, and against forced land acquisition for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train, the Salem-Chennai green corridor and the various Industrial Corridors and Freight Corridors proposals.
The workers and farmers who have been arriving in Delhi for the rally in batches have been met by rainfalls. The Ramlila maidan is flooded forcing them to make arrangements to camp elsewhere.
