Attacks on meat trade will affect 24 lakh people in UP, says CPI(M)

The CPI (M) Central Committee has observed that the RSS and the BJP have intensified their efforts to sharpen communal polarisation after the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand electoral victories.

A meeting of the CPI (M)’s top panel, which met here on Tuesday and Wednesday, also noted that the RSS has “rapidly spread” its influence in various parts of the country under the Narendra Modi regime.

New communal offensive The Left party also said the BJP unleashed a new communal offensive in Uttar Pradesh soon after the assumption of office of Chief Minister by Yogi Adithyanath.

“The attacks on meat trade in Uttar Pradesh in the name of closing down illegal slaughter houses has adversely affected the livelihood of over 24 lakhs of people and badly hit meat exports. Uttar Pradesh contributes most of the earnings of meat exports from India. The vigilante actions of the so-called

gau rakshaks operating in the BJP-ruled States continues to claim the lives of innocent Muslims and Dalits. The latest in this line of attacks was the killing of Pahlu Khan in Behror, near Alwar in Rajasthan,” the party said in a statement. It added that the anti-Romeo squads have been formed to harass innocent youth in the name of moral policing.

Flays privatisation The party condemned the Centre’s move for “large-scale privatisation” of the public sector. “This will further exacerbate the unemployment situation. Already the government has admitted in parliament a loss of nearly 1.5 crore jobs in the recent period,” the statement said.

On the agrarian distress, the statement said a number of farmers are under miseries in vast tracts of rural areas. “The BJP government has reneged on its promise of increasing the MSP to levels of one-and-half times the cost of production. Unless this is done, mere waiver of loans, though it may provide temporary relief, cannot be a solution in the long run to resolve the crisis engulfing our agricultural sector,” the statement said.