The Left-Front today announced it is scheduled to soon hold a sixteen-party meeting where it would decide on its future course of action and party programmes that will include protests against the Centre’s intervention in state-related matters.
Addressing a Press conference today, the Left-Front chairman, Biman Bose, said, “We will soon hold a sixteen party meeting to decide on the programmes that will be taken up by the Left parties in the state. An all India protest by all Left parties has started from today that will go on till 30 June. This is to protest against the unprecedented price hike in petrol/diesel that is having a cascading effect on other essential items such as vegetables.”
The 16-party meeting will also witness deliberations on matters such as withdrawal of GST on drugs and essential items related to Covid management. “Central government needs to withdraw GST imposed on prices of pandemic related drugs. This is unacceptable. The state’s finance minister Amit Mitra recently highlighted the demand in the GST Council meeting. Additionally, the government needs to put a stop to black-marketing essential drugs and oxygen. We will decide in the meeting how and when these issues can and will be raised” said Bose.
He highlighted one of the important issues that will be taken up in the meeting is, public transport. “Since the Covid restrictions have been extended but public transport remains suspended, commuters are facing a harrowing time along with operators who are in a dilemma over the price rise in petrol/diesel. A practical solution needs to be found to solve the issue” he said.
Meanwhile, the LF chairman further added that the meeting will also focus on the “unnecessary intervention of Centre in state-related matters.” He said the state’s governor Jagdeep Dhankhar ought to put a stop to his activities like unnecessary and politically motivated attacks against the state government as if he is a BJP functionary.
“Governor must realise his limitations and respect the constitution. His position is an appointed one and not elected. It was unbelievable how he entertained large numbers of BJP MLAs who flocked to the Raj Bhawan where the Governor met with them in the balcony” Bose said, and criticized how Dhankhar may have reduced the seriousness of a Governor’s position.