Protest
Kisan Samvad Yatra in Maharashtra
kisan-samvad-yatra-maharashtra

At a meeting in Pune on 7 September 2021, the leadership of the Lal Nishan Party and the CPIML Liberation resolved to work in close cooperation for the success of ongoing people’s movements in Maharashtra and all over India, for a powerful Left assertion and growing cooperation with wide-ranging democratic forces for a powerful anti fascist resistance.  

In keeping with that spirit, the LNP, CPIML, and the Satyashodhak Communist Party together held a Kisan Samvad Yatra that covered some 2000 kilometres across the state and met more than a lakh farmers. The Yatra began on 13 September and ended on 21 September.

A rally was held on 14 September at Aurangabad. From there the Yatra moved to northern Maharashtra, with two rallies, each attended by 10,000 farmers, at Nandurbar and Dhule. The next rally at Satana near Nashik was disrupted by police and the feudal forces in the area. But, defying this disruption, 2000 farmers held a gathering, even without a microphone and dais or tent.

The Yatra then moved to Srirampur, where 600 people attended a farmers’ convention in an auditorium. On 19 September, 100 activists of all three streams met at Ahmednagar. A gathering of 600 people, mostly former textile workers, was held at Gadhinglaj. On 20 September, the Yatra met 104-year old freedom fighter and Kisan movement veteran Comrade Ganpati Patil of LNP in Kolhapur. The Gurudwara Prabandhak committees felicitated the Yatra participants at Srirampur and Navi Mumbai. Comrade Rajaram Singh, GS of All India Kisan Mahasabha and PBM of CPIML, Comrade Sukhdarshan Natt, CPIML CCM and one of the leaders of the ongoing Kisan movement in Punjab and at Delhi’s Tikri Border; Comrades Subhash Kakuste and Rajendra Bawake of LNP and Comrade Kishor Damle, the organising secretary of Satyashodhak Communist Party, were with the Yatra throughout, as were Comrades Ajit Patil and Shyam Gohil of the CPIML Maharashtra CPIML unit. CPIML MLA and AIKM leader from Bihar Comrade Sudama Prasad joined the Yatra from Srirampur onwards to Kolhapur, where Comrade Atul Dighe from LNP joined it.