Bengal: DYFI to Launch Uttarkanya Abhiyan with Focus on North Bengal Districts

Kolkata: The Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) has embarked on state-wide protests on issues ranging from food and work for all, fair price for farmers, free and fair panchayat elections and against rising communal polarisation by RSS-BJP, among others.

On Tuesday, amid scorching heat, protesters in North 24 Parganas district faced police lathi-charge but continued to march toward the Zilla Parishad Gate. About 10 protesters were injured while another 10 were detained by the police.

Before DYFI started the ‘law violation’  programme, a brief rally was held, where speakers admonished the Trinamool Congress (TMC) administration for “being corrupt and indifferent to the needs of people”. The leaders also spoke against Bharatiya Janata Party’s communal game, alleging that TNC was in cohorts with the saffron party to “recreate a binary narrative in the state with an eye on electoral gains.”

The rally began from Hela Battala More in Barasat and followed the National highway, breaking the police barricade before the Court Bazaar area. Police resorted to lathi-charge there, but tens of thousands of youths defied the police and reached the gate of the Zilla Parishad Bhawan.

Protesting the “high-handedness” of the police, DYFI leaders decided against meeting the Zilla Parishad officials and instead emailed a copy of their memorandum to the administration.

On April 13, the DYFI plans to convene an Uttarkanya Abhiyan, which is expected to be attended by thousands of youths. The campaign will highlight the demands of the youths of North Bengal, and against rising communal overtones that have affected public life in North Bengal.

Speaking to reporters, DYFI state secretary Minakshi Mukherjee said the programme had been taken up to ward off a sense of fear from public life before the forthcoming panchayat polls in the state.  She also said that a strong movement would be built up against the “scam-laden TMC government”. 

Mukherjee appealed to people to fight the fear psychosis built up by the TMC. She said DYFI planned to hold street corner meetings in all North Bengal districts.

The organisation is raising the issue of having multispecialty hospitals in each North Bengal district, a food processing  park in Ghugudanga, a jute park in Chokchoka  of Cooch Behar, among other demands during its  Uttarkanya Abhiyan. The issue of closed tea gardens, of the transformation of tea workers to migrant labourers, of not giving patta to tea workers for their residential land etc., will also be raised.