Shades of red
In the latest issue of its weekly mouthpiece Peoples Democracy,the CPI(M) engages in an ideological war of words with the Maoists. The lead editorial argues that the cause of the exploited and the marginalised was espoused by the CPI(M) and the Left parties and not by the Naxalites: Contrary to the infatuated romantic description that Maoist influence is spreading because they espouse the cause of the most marginalised sections like the tribals,the truth is that control over administration of a territory provides substantial pecuniary as well as political power. This is the driving force behind much of their violent activities, it says.
They are promoting a person to be the future chief minister of West Bengal who served as a cabinet minister in the Vajpayee government,remaining silent,thus implicitly supporting,the State-sponsored communal genocide in Gujarat. She is serving as a cabinet minister today in the Manmohan Singh government. Such is the opportunism of the Maoist class assault against the State, it says.
Todays Maoists are the result of a partial reuniting of the hopelessly fragmented Naxalite groups following their split with the CPI(M) in 1967. Despite the experience of the last four decades,which vindicated the CPI(M)s understanding that the bourgeois-landlord Indian ruling classes had a strong political and social base among the Indian people,the Naxal/Maoist groups continued with their earlier assessment.
BALCO accident
The edition quotes a report prepared by the CPI(M)s trade union arm CITU on the recent accident at the BALCOs power plant in Chhattisgarh. It says the facts gathered from the accident site show that the mishap occurred due to the use of substandard construction materials and substandard technique,and holds the Sterlite group and Gannon Dunkerley & Company Ltd responsible for the mishap. Interestingly,there is no mention about Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation ,the Chinese company which was awarded the chimney construction project. According to the information collected,only 90 piles were used in the foundation of the chimney under construction,while the public sector National Thermal Power Corporation uses 350 to 400 piles in constructing a comparable kind of chimney. The iron rods used in it were found to be of 18 to 20 mm thickness while the height of the proposed chimney demanded iron rods of 30 to 35 mm thickness. Nor was enough water used in curing the constructed parts of the proposed structure, it says
It criticises Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram for not talking about the issue while visiting Raipur recently and accuses the state government of not acting against the company officials. As for the BJP government of Chhattisgarh,Chief Minister Raman Singh did visit the accident site,but did nothing further. It has come to knowledge that no permission was taken from the administration for constructing the chimney. So the question is; Who was colluding with the management in this construction? Why did the administration fail to take note of this construction? Why did they not act against such an illegal construction? it asks.
