STARTING from May 5, 2026, the birth anniversary of Karl Marx, to May 12, six massive rallies under the leadership of the CPI(M) and the AIKS, with the participation of more than 31,000 peasant women and men, marched to the respective sub-divisional officers’ (SDO) offices in Dahanu, Bhiwandi, Wada, Jawhar, Vasai and Palghar, and submitted thousands of land-related claims. 

The tehsil-wise participation in these six rallies comprising peasants from 10 tehsils of Thane-Palghar district was as follows: 1. Dahanu and Talasari - 15,000, 2. Wada and Vikramgad - 5,000, 3. Jawhar and Mokhada - 5,000, 4. Shahapur and Bhiwandi - 3,000, 5. Vasai - 1,500, 6. Palghar - 1,500. These daily rallies were held in scorching heat of 41 to 43 degrees Celsius.

It may be mentioned that all these rallies began on the very next day after May 4, the date on which the shocking results of the five state Assembly elections were declared. Thus, they represented the defiant resistance of the Red Flag to all adversities. All the six rallies included thousands of women and youth. Along with the CPI(M) and the AIKS, the CITU, AIDWA, DYFI, SFI, and the AARM also actively mobilised for these rallies. 

As a result of the historic Palghar, Nashik, and Akole Long Marches in January-February 2026, which mobilised a total of over one lakh peasants, the district collectors and later the state government itself were forced to give in writing that all land-related claims, including those under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), old landlords' lands, temple and inami lands, house-site lands, etc. would be freshly re-examined, and these land rights would be vested in the names of the cultivating peasants. This was a major victory gained by these 2026 Long Marches. 

As a follow-up, a massive campaign was conducted by the AIKS in Thane-Palghar districts to fill in thousands of fresh land-related claims. All of them were submitted to the various SDOs by the six rallies, and official receipts were taken for all the land claims submitted. The SDOs agreed to re-examine all the claims on a war footing and grant land rights at the very earliest. 

Several other burning local issues of the people as regards water, irrigation, electricity, employment, education, ration, roads, etc. were raised by each of the delegations. The SDOs gave concrete and time-bound assurances on most of them. The decision of the central government to slash the number of PESA mobiliser women from 3,000 to 1,000 in Maharashtra was strongly condemned as well. 

These rallies were led by CPI(M) Polit Bureau members Ashok Dhawale and Mariam Dhawale, Central Committee member Vinod Nikole, MLA, State Secretariat members Kiran Gahala and Prachi Hatiwlekar, State Committee members Radka Kalangda, Laxman Dombre, Lahani Dauda, Sunita Shingda, Chandu Dhangda, Bharat Walamba, Chandrakant Ghorkhana, Tehsil Secretaries Yashwant Budhar, Amrut Bhawar, Ganesh Dumada, Krishna Bhawar, Sanjay Vanse, and many others. While addressing the rallies, the leaders came down heavily on the RSS-BJP and their regimes in the state and at the Centre in the background of the recent Assembly election results.

CAMPAIGN ON SHIVAJI AND ITS BACKGROUND

Around the time of the above rallies, Shiv Sena (Shinde faction) MLA Sanjay Gaikwad made abusive remarks and gave death threats to the publisher of a popular book ‘Who Was Shivaji?’ by Govind Pansare. This book places an objective pro-people and secular history of Shivaji. Over five lakh copies of this book have been sold in Maharashtra, and it has sold very well in other national languages too. LeftWord Books has brought out its English edition translated by Dr Uday Narkar. At around this same time, one Bageshwar Baba (Dhirendra Krishna Shastri) delivered a lecture in Nagpur in which he made utterly false statements about Shivaji. The equally condemnable part was that this lecture was attended by RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, but none of them raised any objection to these canards spread by the Bageshwar Baba. It was in this background that a call was given by the CPI(M) Maharashtra State Committee to observe a week as ‘Shiv Vichar Jagar Saptah’. As part of this campaign, 1,000 copies of this book were sold in the above rallies. Along with this, 15,000 copies of the Party state weekly ‘Jeevanmarg’, were sold. The total sale was worth over Rs 2 lakh.   

ENTHUSIASTIC INAUGURATION OF CPI(M) OFFICE IN DAHANU

On May 3, 2026, the new Dahanu tehsil office of the CPI(M) at Ashagad in Palghar district of Maharashtra was inaugurated amidst enthusiasm by 98-year-old veteran Party and AIKS leader L B Dhangar and by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and AIKS National President Ashok Dhawale. Over 300 leaders of the Thane-Palghar district were present. 

After garlanding the portraits of the legendary leaders Godavari and Shamrao Parulekar, the function was addressed by Dhangar, Dhawale, and CPI(M) Central Committee member Vinod Nikole, MLA, State Secretariat members Kiran Gahala and Prachi Hatiwlekar, State Committee members Radka Kalangda, Laxman Dombre, Lahani Dauda, Sunita Shingda, and Chandrakant Ghorkhana. It is remarkable that many of our activists voluntarily contributed their labour of many days to construct this building.