Left parties stage right to food rally, hundreds arrested

BHUBANESWAR: Hundreds of workers and supporters of Left parties- CPI (M), CPI and Forward Bloc were arrested by the police during a rally in front of the State Assembly here on Monday. The members of the parties demanded food security for all the citizens of the country.

Supporting the cause of the central committee, more than thousand of supporters and members of the State committees of the parties conducted a rally in front of the State Assembly following a procession starting from Master Canteen to the Lower PMG square to demand the right to food through a universal public distribution system (PDS). The Left parties would also stage rally on Tuesday demanding food security, said Bhubaneswar zone secretary of CPI Sura Jena.

In their five-point charter of demands, the Left parties urged the Government for adopting the universal PDS by scrapping the present classification of BPL and APL system. Blaming the ‘highly dubious’ poverty estimates of Planning Commission, the Left parties said that the Government should reject such wrong estimates. The parties also demanded it should implement Swaminathan Committees’ recommendations to save the farmers of the country and to take steps on war footing to control the price rise. During the rally, the Left parties slammed the UPA Government which failed to control prices of most essential commodities.

Among others, CPI (M) politburo member and leader of opposition in West Bengal Assembly Dr Suryakant Mishra, State CPM secretary Janardan Pati, CPI State secretary Diwakar Nayak, Forward Bloc State secretary Santosh Mitra, Jagatsinghpur MP Bibhu Prasad Tarai, Chhatrapur MLA Adikand Sethi and veteran communist leader Shivaji Patnaik were present.