CPI wants Govt to bring amendment to nullify SC limit of 50 per cent on reservations; supports farmers’ call for Bharat Bandh

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The Communist Party of India (CPI) today said if the caste Census is to become meaningful, the Government must bring an amendment to nullify the Supreme Court’s restriction of reservations in education and jobs at 50 per cent.

In a resolution passed by its national executive, the CPI said BJP was deliberately avoiding the amendment “to utilize caste conflicts in various states for political gains.”

CPI General Secretary D Raja said the national executive had asked people to support the 27th September Bharat Bandh called by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha to force the withdrawal of the three controversial farm laws.

In a resolution, the party said the Bharat Bandh was meant to reiterate the unflinching solidarity of the Indian masses to the ongoing Kisan struggle for more than 10 months.

“The ‘annadatas’ of the country came to the borders of the national capital demanding the repeal of the three farm laws enacted by the RSS-BJP government in a most undemocratic manner,” the party said.

“The CPI is convinced that these dark laws would lead to the ruin of Indian agriculture. It will throw the lives of crores of our farmers to total peril,” the party said.

Raja said the farmers’ agitation had great political significance in the present situation, as it challenged the “anti-people, anti-national” policies of the government.

Analysing the last assembly elections in West Bengal, the national executive concluded that the population of Bengal overwhelmingly voted for the TMC to keep the BJP away from power and the Congress-Left-ISF alliance failed to project itself as a cohort which can resolutely keep the BJP away from the state.

The West Bengal state council of the party had reviewed the election results and identified “its mistakes” but as this political debacle speaks of the continuing organizational decline of the Party in the state for long, “we feel that our party as well as the Left needs to do a serious rethinking of its position as this is the first time that there is not a single representative of the Left win in the West Bengal Assembly elections,” the CPI national executive said.