Will launch move for jobs after caste survey: CPIML(L) chief Dipankar

NEW DELHI: The CPIML(L) plans to launch a movement ahead of the 2024 general election focusing on the implications of Bihar’s caste survey which it feels are three-fold – need to create jobs, housing for the poor and better education.

CPIML(L) general secretary Dipankar in an interview to PTI said, "Implicit in the survey results which shows that more than a third of families lives on less than Rs 200 a day is the need to create jobs so that people’s income levels go up. "Similarly, the fact that more than 40 per cent of families live in tin shed and jhuggis and another 22.37 live in just one-room tenements proves the housing for all slogan given by the BJP which ran Bihar till last year has failed.

We need to create more housing." The leader of the communist party, which has emerged as the strongest Leftist organization in Bihar with 12 seats in the state assembly, also pointed that the report shows that a mere 6.11 per cent of the state’s population are graduates and less than 15 per cent have cleared class 10 exams and "implies there is an immediate need to focus on education to help bring people out of poverty."

Political parties need to focus on people’s needs and the survey has to be analysed to deliver services to them said Dipankar Bhattacharya, a Master in statistics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Statistics, who prefers to go by just his first name.

The party also plans to launch a citizens’ initiative, cutting across party lines, in TMC MP Mahua Moitra’s constituency Krishnanagar in West Bengal supporting the Lok Sabha member, whose expulsion has been recommended by a parliamentary committee following allegations of ‘cash-for queries’.

Speaking on the issue of the move to expel TMC MP Mahua Moitra from Parliament based on findings of the Ethics Committee, Dipankar, who is Kolkata to attend a party convention, claimed, "the move is a complete mockery of process … while no action has been taken against others such as Ramesh Bidhuri whose case have been referred to the committee, attempts are being made to stifle Moitra and other opposition voices."

The Lok Sabha Ethics Committee looking into the "cash-for-query" allegations against Moitra is learnt to have recommended her expulsion from the Lower House of Parliament on the grounds of "unethical conduct" having an impact on national security.

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Expressing solidarity with Moitra, several opposition parties including her own the Trinamool Congress have labelled the move as "vendetta politics," accusing the BJP of attempting to stifle voices critical of the central government.

Dipankar told PTI, "We will start a citizens' initiative cutting across party lines on the issue protesting the treatment being meted out to her in West Bengal’s Krishnanagar which she represents." The charismatic Naxalite leader who opted for electoral politics claimed that a similar attempt was made to "stifle Rahul Gandhi by expelling him from Lok Sabha but this was undone by the Supreme Court."