A meeting of members of the Socialist Party held in
Patna on 10-11 March 2013 to form the Bihar unit of the Socialist Party. After
due deliberations, Dr. Sushil Kumar was nominated as the president, Ranjeet
Mandal as the senior vice president, Dr. Bhanu Udayan as the general secretary
and Ashok Kumar Thakur as the media in charge of Bihar state. Ms. Ayasha Khan,
Ms. Jyoti Singh, Ms. Stela Lotika, Prabhakar, Dr. Uma Shankar Bharti, Ganesh
Gutt Singh, Jeevan Chaudhary, Yogendra Sharma, Dr. Subodh Kumar, Devanand and
Dr. Manikant Singh were nominated as the members of the state executive
committee. The team will be extended further in the next 6 months. Before, a 24
member Bihar State Committee used to carry the party work in the state.
The meeting was attended by Dr. Prem Singh, national
general secretary, as chief guest and chaired by national executive member Ranjeet
Mandal. Gautam Pritam, president, Socialist Yuvjan Sabha (SYS), Bihar, Rakesh
Kumar Dubey, convener, SYS Delhi University were also present.
Dr. Prem Singh and newly elected leaders addressed a
press conference on 11 March and apprised the media about the new team and
policies of the party. Dr. Prem Singh put forth Socialist Party’s assessment on
the claims made by the present JD(U)-BJP coalition government about the development
and the good governance (sushasan) in Bihar. He said that there is an
unprecedented boom in the real state and liquor business in Bihar under the
rule of the present government. The Nitish Kumar government preaches this boom as
the development of Bihar. But the Socialist Party calls it the source of sub-culture
and corruption spreading all over Bihar. Dr. Singh apprised the press persons
that ‘sushasan’ of Nitish Kumar has left far behind the ‘jungle raj’ of Lalu
Prasad Yadav. People are not safe in Bihar. There are cases of gang rape,
murder and day-light dacoity almost every day.
Dr. Singh said that Nitish Kumar will be remembered as
a leader who facilitated the communal forces to make their deep roots in the secular
and socialist soil of Bihar. His opposition to Narendra Modi is merely a
political gimmick while he enjoys the power with the BJP. In fact, Nitish and
Modi are two faces of a same coin - Modi openly threats muslims; Nitish openly
deceives them.
His policies are no different from the neo-liberal
policies of the Congress and the BJP which make rich richer and exclude the
hard working toiling masses. The labour strength of Bihar has changed the economic
fate of several states in India over the years. But Nitish Kumar is busy
playing the ‘special status’ card. He needs more money from the centre to spend
that on the bureaucracy, on which he depends; on his image building, party
setup and elections; and to help the builders, who reciprocate his generosity.
He is not at all worried about the people of Bihar who migrate in search of ‘roji-roti’
and education as it was in the earlier regime.
Dr. Singh emphasized that the path of development of
Bihar goes through its enormous work force, fertile land and agro based and
other small scale industries. He made an unrest appeal to all genuine socialists
of Bihar to join the Socialist Party who take inspiration from the thoughts of
JP, Lohia, Archarya Narendra Dev, Yusuf Meharally, Achyut Patwardhan, Madhu
Limye, Kishan Patnaik and other socialist stalwarts.
Dr. Sushil Kumar expressed full support to the
agitation and demands of the contractual teachers and condemned the high
handedness of the government. He made it clear that the Socialist Party is
opposed to the contractual system in the appointments of teachers and privatization
of education in any form. The party stands for ‘free, equal and quality education
for all from KG to PG’. He made the demand for immediate implementation of the
report on Common School System prepared by Prof. Anil Sadgopal and Prof.
Muchkund Dubey.
Dr. Bhanu Udayan raised the issues about health
services which are in a bad shape, particularly in rural and sub-urban Bihar. It
is the duty of an elected government to provide proper health facilities to its
citizens. He alleged that poor people are bound to die due to lack of minimum
health facilities. He said that sail of spurious drugs and black marketing of
medicines is prevalent on a large scale in Bihar. This makes the patients more
vulnerable.
Ranjeet Mandal spoke about the vulnerable condition of
farmers and agriculture in the state. The contribution of agriculture in the
economy has been reduced due to negative growth rate. Even basic needs of
farmers are not met and they are forced to abandon the occupation. He demanded that
proper arrangements should be made for irrigation, seeds, manure, electricity etc.
and special thrust and encouragement should be given to the agro-based
industries to make agriculture a viable occupation. He further suggested that a
public facility map should be prepared by the village panchayats so that no
encroachment would be made on public utility lands like streets, roads, ponds,
grazing grounds, schools, health centers etc.
Gautam Pritam, announced that the SYS will open its
students’ wings in all Bihar colleges and universities very soon. SYS will
fight decisively the neo-liberal onslaught on the education system. Ashok Kumar
Thakur expressed thanks to the media
persons came to cover the press conference.
P.S.
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