CPI(M) to hold nationwide protest on June 16 against govt's response to COVID-19 pandemic

The CPI(M) will hold a nationwide protest on June 16 protesting against the Narendra Modi government's response to COVID-19 pandemic that rendered "an additional around 15 crore people jobless" during the lockdown and pushed migrant workers to hit roads to march towards their homes displaying the extent of hunger they were suffering.

The decision to hold the protest was announced by CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday, a day after the party's top leaders in the Polit Bureau met "digitally" to analyse the situation in the country.

The Central Committee, the highest decision making body of the party, will also be called in July "using digital technology like done for the Polit Bureau meeting", in a first of its kind deliberations through video conferencing, when it takes a call on its triennal Party Congress next year and discuss the political situation.

Yechury said the Polit Bureau has decided to hold the protest by observing physcial distancing norms and wearing masks. The protesters are demanding a cash transfer of Rs. 7500 per month for a period of six months to all families outside the income tax paying bracket and free distribution of 10 kg foodgrains, per individual, per month for a period of six months.

The protesters will also demand a minimum of 200 days employment under MNREGA with enhanced ways, extending the employment guarantee scheme to urban areas and unemployment allowance to all jobless people as well as against privatisation and scrapping of labour laws.

"The Modi government is pursuing an agenda which is deepening and sharpening communal polarisation by arresting, isolating and targeting activists from minority communities. A financial package is announced which is nothing but repackaging of already announced schemes. Only 1% of the Rs 20,000 lakh crore is new, which is completely inadequate," he said.

"A vast section of our people have lost all means of livelihood. The heart-rending experiences of hungry migrant workers on the roads marching back home has shown the depths of huger that a sizeable section of our people are suffering today," he said.

Asked about his views on unlocking, Yechury said the lockdown and unlocking was equally unscientific as the government did not take measures for "either augmenting the health facilities required" or in providing relief to the people who have been "agonized cruelly by not getting any time to prepare to meet the consequences" of the lockdown.

"The government is now telling people, you fend for yourself. It is washing its hands off," he said adding it took a unilateral decision to impose lockdown and is now "shifting the burden" of bearing the consequences of the lockdown, on to the shoulders of the state governments.

"Modi even refuses to part with the thousands of crores of rupees he is collecting in a private trust fund under the PM’s name, to the states," he added.

On the June 1 announcement on increasing Minimum Support Price (MSP) for certain agricultural products, he said the increase was a meagre 2% for paddy and likewise for other commodities. The increase was much less than the cost of production that has gone up during the last one year, pushing the peasantry into "greater indebtedness", he said.

Asked about the stand-off between India and China, he said the matter was an issue of concern and expressed hope that the talks being held through the established mechanism at the defence and diplomatic levels will help to resolve it.