New Delhi, March 22 The Communist Party of India (Marxist) will hold a 'Jan Akrosh Rally' at Ramlila Maidan here on March 24, following the conclusion of an extensive outreach campaign across north India, party general secretary M A Baby announced on Sunday.
The rally marks the culmination of 33 'Jan Akrosh Jathas' conducted between February 27 and March 20 across multiple states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and Jharkhand.
"These jathas, spanning a cumulative 213 days, saw more than a thousand public meetings with participation of around 1.5 lakh people," Baby said, adding that 35,000 booklets were sold and nearly 10 lakh leaflets distributed during the campaign.
Cultural teams accompanied the jathas, performing street plays and songs to highlight issues affecting workers, farmers and the rural poor.
The CPI(M) has demanded the withdrawal of notification of the four labour codes and the scrapping of the newly enacted Viksit Bharat-Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) (VB-GRAMG) Act, among others.
The Left party has also demanded that the Electricity Act should not be amended and that there should be no privatisation of discoms. It has also opposed amending the Seed Bill, and sought scrapping the India-US trade deal, stating that it is "blatantly against the interests of Indian farmers, workers and MSMEs".
Baby said during the Jathas, CPI(M) leaders could directly understand the "plight of the people".
He said they could see the "direct impact" of the West Asia situation, and said the community kitchen at the Annapurna temple in Varanasi being impacted due to shortage of LPG cylinders.
"For over 300 years, uninterrupted food used to be provided by the Annapurna temple, and for the first time in the history of the temple during the 300 years, they had to close down the free food service in Varanasi, in prime minister's constituency," Baby said.
"Similar reports are coming from different parts of the country. How various establishments and businesses are adversely affected, many industries either partially or fully being closed down, hostels are being closed down.
"This is because of the unilateral, illegal aggression carried out by the USA and Israel on Iran, without any rhyme or reason," he said.