In a bid to register their protest against the land Acquisition Bill introduced in Parliament by the NDA Government, thousands of CPI activists courted arrest all over Tamil Nadu on Thursday.
Member of Parliament D Raja, who is also the national secretary of the CPI, led the party workers at Chennai Central Railway Station for a ‘Rail Roko’. The police detained Raja, R Mutharasan (Tamil Nadu CPI secretary) and hundreds of party workers. later, they were released.
“More than 50,000 party workers were arrested from 400 places in Tamil Nadu,” said Mahendran, senior CPI leader who led the agitation in Krishnagiri. The party workers staged demonstrations in front of all Central Government establishments in Tamil Nadu against the land Bill, which they described as anti-poor and anti-farmer. The slogans were raised condemning the NDA Government and the anti-farmer land Acquisition Bill.
The activists were heard warning the Central Government against going ahead with the land Bill, which according to the party would rob millions of their land. Earlier, while addressing the party cadre at Chennai, Raja and other leaders said the Bill is being brought to help certain corporate giants.
Mahendran said the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government was trying to derail the benefits gained by the landless farmers through the 40-year long agitations staged by the CPI.
“It was because of our continuous struggle and agitations that the landless farmers were given surplus land. The Centre is trying to take back that precious land from the poor farmers in the name of development,” said Mahendran.
The CPI, which has considerable presence in certain areas in the State, is trying to stage a come back before the next assembly elections so that it can give a scare to the main parties like the AIADMK and the DMK, according to a senior party leader.
“The party could not field candidates in many winning seats because of the compulsion of coalition politics and that is the reason for not getting the requisite number of seats in the last lok Sabha polls,” Raja had told party cadre in the run up to the agitation against the land Acquisition Bill.