Apr 04, 2014
The CPI(M) candidate from Jhabua-Ratlam Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh, Lata Bharbore, filed her nomination at Jhabua today.
Prior to the filing of the nomination papers, CPI(M) workers took out an impressive procession covering a distance of five kilometers in the town. Speaking at a public meeting at the conclusion of the march, CPI(M) State Secretary, Badal Saroj, appealed to the electorate to vote for the CPI(M) candidate. He said that the condition of the tribals could improve only if the current trajectory of policies, pursued by the UPA government at the Centre and the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh, is changed. The tribals have been deprived of their rights over forests and alienated from their lands. Their rights over forests and land need to be restored, he said.
An accident left Lata’s father bedridden for four years in her youth. Lata’s family suffered greatly during this period, finding it hard to survive in an area that lives in acute distress. Madhya Pradesh’s plutocrats use the manganese and rock phosphate of Jhabua-Ratlam for their own enrichment, leaving this majority adivasi area without any social development. Less than two percent of the households here have safe tap water and most households have no drainage.
In 2012 Lata Bharbore and her husband, Edwin Eldons, joined the CPI(M). In the rural part of the district, the Party has a committed base through the Adivasi Ekta Mahasabha. The local administration arrested Bharbore and her husband under the SC/ST Act. It was as if the local government wanted to say that adivasis should not have a political identity. The top administrative officer of the district said that she could join any party but not the CPI(M). She persisted, continued to be harassed by the bureaucracy, and was arrested again on two occasions again. Bharbore is active in the organization of dais (midwives) in Jhabua. She has worked with adivasi women to get them permanent jobs as mid-day meal workers and helpers in government hospitals.
Accompanying her while filing the nomination among others were CPI(M) State Secretary, Badal Saroj and State Secretariat member Jasvinder Singh.
April 4, 2014
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