Left parties to start countrywide stir Monday

Six Left parties Sunday decided to start a countrywide mass movement from Monday in support of their nine-point demand including stopping introduction of RSS and Hindutva ideologies in education and preventing FDI in insurance sector.

The six parties met here during the day to finalise details of the the week-long agitation slated to end Dec 14.

The outfits - Communist Party of India-Marxist, Communist Party of India, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Forward Bloc, Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) and Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (Liberation) - are also railing against the spread of communal violence in the name of 'love jihad' and encroachment of the rights of minorities.

Briefing media persons after the deliberations, West Bengal's opposition Left Front chairman and CPI-M politburo member Biman Bose said 11 allied parties in the state would also take aprt in the movement.

Street corners, sit-ins, and other forms of protests would be organised in all the districts of the state.

A demonstration will be held at the Y Channel in the city hub Dec 11 on the demands.

The CPI-M would oppose the amendment of West Bengal Agricultural Marketing Bill at the assembly Monday, as "it will facilitate the take over of the sector by multinational corporates".

"What we have heard is that the government is bringing this amendment to allow the multinationals to take over the sector. If there is no government control, big players will call the shots and be the decider of the lives of millions of people dependent on agriculture," said Bose.

On the government's move to impose restrictions on journalists at the temporary state secretariat "Nabanna", he said it was an attempt to "muzzle the media".

"Police and the administration will direct journalists to the press corner. The media persons will not have the right to go anywhere elese in the secretariat."

"Journalists are not anti-socials. It is like a milder version of an emergency-like situation. It is obnoxious and we condemn it strongly," he added.

Opposing the central government's decision to declare the Bhagwat Gita as a "national scripture", he termed it "nothing but yet another attempt to implement the ideologies of RSS and Hindutva in the country".