Bhubaneswar: Odisha State Council of the Communist Party of India (CPI) is all set to intensify its statewide ‘Change is Necessary’ (Badlaav Zaroori Hai) campaign against what it described as the BJP government’s misrule, corruption, exploitation and anti-people policies.
The party also adopted a condemnation resolution against the state BJP government over the Kotia territorial dispute, alleging that the state’s interest is being compromised to protect Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political position.
The decisions were taken at a party meeting in Bhagabati Bhawan Sunday. Presenting the organisational report, CPI Odisha State Secretary Prasanta Kumar Mishra called for the continuation of branch-level conferences and expansion of the campaign through statewide padayatras and other mass mobilisation programmes.
The party announced revolutionary rallies at the block level November 7 to mark Revolution Day and decided to launch a statewide civil disobedience movement December 1-3.
The agitation will be organised in front of District Collector offices across the state, with thousands of CPI members and supporters expected to court arrest.
CPI National Council Secretariat member Ramakrishna Panda urged party workers to intensify the campaign for systemic change in the country and congratulated youth and student organisations across the country for increasingly raising demands for broader political and social transformation and highlighted the role of the CPI and the INDIA bloc in the struggle to defend democracy.
The state council adopted a resolution condemning the BJP-led state government over the Kotia region, which remains at the centre of a longstanding territorial dispute between Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
The CPI alleged that the state government was compromising Odisha’s territorial interests for political reasons and asserted that it would not tolerate interference by any outside authority in even an inch of the state’s territory.
The meeting raised a series of demands concerning electoral transparency, democratic rights and institutional accountability, including the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
The CPI called for reforms to the selection process for Election Commissioners, proposing consultations involving the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India.
It also demanded effective mechanisms to make the Election Commission accountable for its decisions and actions.
The party further demanded the restoration of names allegedly deleted from electoral rolls through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process, claiming that more than 13 crore citizens had been excluded.
It also called for the replacement of Electronic Voting Machines with ballot-paper voting, arguing that the change was necessary to safeguard democracy.
