The 11th State Conference of the CPI(ML) Uttar Pradesh unit was successfully held between 30 August to 1 September 2015 in Ghazipur district, with the pledge to intensify struggles against the Modi government’s pro-corporate policies, communalism and fascism, against the SP government’s criminal-police raj, for democracy, employment, justice, and people’s safety. 278 delegates (37 women) from 37 districts participated in the conference. 90 delegates took part in the discussion on the work report. A new 43-member State committee was formed under the supervision of the Politburo member and conference observer Comrade Swadesh Bhattacharya, and Comrade Ramji Rai was unanimously elected State secretary.
The conference began with flag hoisting by senior Party leader Comrade Hariwanshi Ram. Inaugurating the open session, CPI(ML) General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya stressed various aspects of the ongoing social, economic and political crisis – the agricultural crisis, farmers’ suicides, grave levels of unemployment, further curtailing of employment opportunities, curtailing of labour rights and ensuring of corporate profits in the name of the government’s “Make in India” project, ongoing corruption, inflation and skyrocketing price rise, ever-increasing repression and fascist curbing of dissent. While workers and farmers have always been exploited by various governments run by the BJP, Congress, JD(U), RJD, SP, and the BSP, at present, other kinds of struggles too are being suppressed. War veterans are agitating for pensions in Delhi; a community is agitating for reservations in Gujarat (albeit it is not certain how genuine this demand is), and in the process, the much-touted Gujarat model has unraveled as unemployed youth in Gujarat desperately looking for employment. Comrade Dipankar added that development as defined by the ruling classes has no meaning for the people since it is loot, corruption, and profiteering for capitalists. Basic needs of people such as roads, water, electricity, housing, toilets, health care, have become issues for agitation. Giving a leadership to the struggles of farmers, contract workers, ASHA workers, teachers, health workers and the beleaguered minority community has become a prime responsibility.
