Protests were held all over Jharkhand against the police firing at Badkagaon and Gola. Effigies of the CM Raghubar Das were burnt and on 5 October, a ‘Fill the Jails’ protest was held with the slogan “Raghubar Das, Killer of Badkagaon and Gola, Must Resign!”
Even before the Badkagaon firing, massive district-level rallies were expressing the growing outrage and anger against the Raghubar Government. On 24 September 2016, CPI(ML) held a People’s Assertion Rally in Hazaribagh district. One of the key issues raised at the rally was the police repression unleashed on the villagers protesting land grab for NTPC at Badkagaon. The violence against Muslims by ‘Cow protection’ goons in Pelawal in Hazaribagh district was also one of the key issues. CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya addressed this rally.
The rally marched from Mission Grounds through the Main Market to culminate in a massive public meeting at School Grounds. Comrade Dipankar, addressing the rally, called for people’s assertion against land grab and state repression as well as communal attacks and hate-mongering against minorities. CPI(ML)’s former MLA Vinod Singh also addressed the rally, demanding that the Government come up with a plan to ensure MNREGA implementation, ration cards and provision of regular rations as well as allocation of GM land (which is being grabbed by land mafias) to the poor for agriculture and housing.
On 24 September, a Protest March and a day-long dharna at the block headquarters was held by the party in Gandey block of Giridih district, demanding rations, electricity, water and land allocation. A memorandum was submitted to the block and district authorities with these demands, warning of an intensified struggles if the demands were not met in a month’s time.
A huge Janakrosh Rally was held in Garhwa district on 24th September. In Garhwa recently, feudal forces destroyed standing crops ready for harvest in Tiwari Marhatia village. Adivasi villagers began a week-long fast demanding punishment for the guilty, registration of ancestral lands to the adivasis as homestead land and protection for their crops. But far from meeting the demands, the administration looked the other way as feudal forces brutally beat up the villagers. Further, BJP Minister Ramchandra Chandravanshi has with administrative support grabbed forest and Raiyati (government) land and showed a Government teaching institute as a ‘new hospital’ on paper. In the name of a fresh Government ‘survey’ of land, Chandravanshi has also managed to loot bhoodan, raiyati and gair mazarua government lands that had been allocated to the poor long ago.
The rally also protested against proposed amendments in the CNT-SPT Acts that protect adivasi land; demanded a stop to the digitization of ration distribution and to the policy of creating ‘land banks’ to facilitate corporate land grab. The rally culminated in a public meeting at the Town Hall grounds, addressed by CPI(ML) MLA Rajkumar Yadav, CPI(ML) State Secretary Janardan Prasad, and others.
