The northern contingent of CPI (M)'s Sangharsh Sandesh Jatha reached Delhi on March 15 completing its 12 day and 2,261 Km long journey through Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. The Jatha started on 4th March from Jalliawalan Bagh in Amritsar. Entering Delhi through the Gurgaon Border, the Jatha got a rousing reception from the Delhi state unit of party at Mahipalpur. From there the Jatha was taken to AKG Bhawan, the Central Committee office of the CPI (M) CC office in an impressive procession of motorcycles and four wheelers. Here again the Jatha received a warm welcome.
Addressing the press at Guragon, CPI (M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat demanded that 1700 acres of land in Gurgaon which was acquired for Reliance special economic zone and handed over to government after Reliance withdrew from the said project be returned to the farmers who are the original owners of this land. The CPI (M) leader also pointed out that even the new Land Acquisition Bill has provision for returning the land to its original owners in case the acquirers are not using land within five years of its acquisition.
Brinda Karat also criticized the new Land Acquisition Bill expected to be introduced in parliament for consideration in the current session itself. Terming the said bill "deeply flawed" she demanded that Bill be sent to a parliamentary select committee as after the huge number of amendments that have been made since its presentation, it should be treated as a "new bill". Pointing out some of major weaknesses of the Bill in its present form, Brinda underlined that Bill creates so many exceptions to its condition of acceptance of land losers and defines "public purpose" so widely that it turns practically the entire exercise meaningless. She also pointed out that Bill encroaches on protections available to tribal people in Vth Schedule areas.
Addressing a Public Meeting at Guragaon's Ramleela Maidan, Brinda Karat who led the Northern Jatha, criticized the repression against Maruti workers and also pointed out that this kind of growing repression is necessitated by growing exploitation of working class and concretization of labor being it's main instrument. In this connection she also criticized the vindictiveness of the Hooda government and pointed out that Circuit House reservations for two ex-MPs on the jatha were cancelled on last minute in retaliation to the CPI (M)'s demonstration on March 14 against the CM's inauguration of a Mall, which is believed to be a backdoor entry for Wal-Mart.
Jatha began it's last day with a reception at Dighal village in Rohatak District. Later on the Jatha reached Jhajhar where a well attended Public Meeting, with large presence of Asha and other Central scheme workers and TU workers was held. From here the Jatha moved towards Gurgaon and received enthusiastic welcome at Dhankot village. In all these places beside Brinda Karat and Hannan Molla, Inderjit Singh, CPI (M) Haryana state secretary and CC member, Jagmati Sangwan and Surender Mallik, state secretariat members and other state leaders also addressed the gatherings. The jatha leaders were handed over memorandums on various people's problems all along the route.
