On 5 November, the CPI(ML) held a public meeting at the Dalit settlement near Motipur Primary Agriculture Cooperative Society (PACS) in Tajpur panchayat in Samastipur district of Bihar, on the problem of rations and toilets. Workers’ leader Rajdev Prasad Singh presided over the meeting and it was conducted by Brahmdev Prasad Singh. Addressing the meeting, the party Block Secretary Surendra Prasad Singh said that that let alone the Block, even a single panchayat cannot be declared Open Defecation Free unless the landless are given homestead land. He also spoke about the ways in which ration dealers and elected representatives collude to deny the poor their rightful food rations.