Brinda Karat on Bihar Campaign Trail
Arun Kumar Mishra
Due to inclement weather the mass meeting to be addressed jointly by Tejashwi Yadav and Brinda Karat in Bibhutipur Constituency was cancelled. But, braving incessant rain, Brinda Karat reached Bibhutipur on October 31 and was received there by CC member and in-charge of Bibhutipur Constituency Awadhesh Kumar and the Party candidate Ajay Kumar, District Secretary Ramashray, State Committee Member Neelam Devi and others. She visited the village of Martyr Ram Nath Mahto, tallest leader and organiser of the party in Samastipur, and garlanded his statue along with the accompanying leaders. She also addressed a big meeting of two thousand strong men and women who had gathered there. She addressed the press persons there and said that the victory of CPI(M) candidate in Bibhutipur, a CPI(M) bastion where many comrades have sacrificed their lines in the land struggles and struggles on other social issues, is a foregone conclusion. She hoped that the politically aware people of Bihar will dethrone the two decades of BJP-JD(U) misrule.
On November 1, she released the party manifesto before the press at the Patna State office along with CC member Awadhesh Kumar, Secretariat members P N Rao, Rampari and Senior CPI(M) leader Sarvodaya Sharma. She highlighted the main points concerning employment, education, health, housing and social security measures.
As the announcement of eradication of extreme poverty by the Kerala LDF government came on the same day, she particularly emphasised that the CPI(M) manifesto has called for implementing the Kerala model to usher in a developed state with human centric development.
Before the visit of Brinda Karat, Mahagathbandhan Chief Ministerial face Tejashwi Yadav had already addressed massive meetings in Manjhi on October 29 and Hayaghat on October 30, exhorting the people to vote in favour of CPI(M) candidates Dr Satyendra Yadav and Shyam Bharti. While introducing Shyam Bharti to the audience he said that since Shyam Bharti comes from a poor family, he is quite aware of the daily struggles of the common man and should be given a chance to serve the people better.
On November 2, Brinda Karat along with Rampari, the in-charge of Manjhi constituency and Secretariat member P N Rao reached Manjhi to participate in a road show. The last lag of the campaign for the first phase of the election on November 6 will come to an end on November 4 at 5 pm.
Bihar Debate on Two Manifestos: INDIA alliance vs NDA
The two separate manifestos, released by the Mahagathbandhan on October 28 and by the NDA on October 31, have ignited fierce debate among the general masses, social activists and well meaning persons on the one hand and the elites and friends of the corporates on the other.
The most debated issue is the promise by Tejashwi Yadav to provide government jobs to one person of every family who have been denied government jobs so far. This was mocked at and jeered by the mainstream print and electronic media. The most dreaded issue in a neo-liberal capitalist regime is employment for all. Capitalism always thrives on the surplus extracted from cheap labour. The army of unemployed labour is essential for squeezing the working class. The uneven development under capitalism in India has also created a gulf between the industrially developed states and states still dependent on agriculture and petty production. The neo-liberal onslaught in the last three decades has further widened this gulf and Bihar is the classic case of a supplier of cheap labour to all parts of the country.
The Mahagathbandhan manifesto covers all aspects of human development, particularly employment, education, health for all, and the solemn pledge to ameliorate the lives of the unorganised workers in different sectors, guaranteeing implementation of minimum wages, regularisation of contractual and outsourced workers, regularisation of Jeevika Didis with 30,000 rupees salary per month, houses for the homeless, social security measures and promises of industrialisation based on the resources found in Bihar.
The Mahagathbandhan manifesto has the imprint of left policies as the manifesto was jointly prepared by all the Mahagathbandhan constituents. It challenges the trajectory of neo-liberal development and puts forward an alternative model of development. This has made the pro-corporate media economists, who serve the interests of the 1% super rich, deride the whole concept of an alternative economic agenda.
Questions are being raised about where the resources will come from to implement the promises. Nobody questions as to how, in the last 11 years of NDA rule at the centre, the government squandered 25 lakh crores of rupees by writing off loans of the Adanis and Ambanis, and how a Rs 34000 crores bailout package was recently provided to Adani by the LIC as desired by the Government of India.
Eminent economist Prbhat Patnaik in his many articles has argued that by imposing wealth and inheritance taxes on the super-rich the government of the day can provide free education, health and other social security measures. Such taxes are common in developed capitalist countries. But instead of taxing the super-rich it is the common people who have to pay through their nose to meet their daily necessities.
The two decades of Nitish – BJP rule has implemented the neo-liberal agenda with impunity leaving the basic needs of the common people unaddressed.
The achievement of LDF led Kerala government in eliminating the extreme poverty and its’ announcement on 1st November by Kerala Chief Minister has further strengthened the resolve of Mahagathbandhan that it can fulfill what it is promising before the electorate of Bihar.
CPI (M) in its manifesto released on 1st November has called to follow Kerala model by planning from below and involving the peasants, workers and other working sections of the society in finalizing and implementing the pro-people policies even within the over all capitalist frame work with financial constraints. (Arun Kumar Mishra)
