By IANS
Hyderabad : Stepping up pressure on the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, the Left parties Wednesday launched the second phase of their agitation seeking distribution of land among landless poor.
Workers of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) as well as large groups of people encroached upon open land in different parts of the state to press their demand.
As part of the ‘bhuporatam’, or land agitation, they also pitched red flags and squatted on land belonging to relatives of a minister in Visakhapatnam. The protesters encroached on land allotted to a company by central government in Prakasam district and some prime property on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
Police have made elaborate arrangements to prevent any untoward incident during the protest, which comes as the Left parties in the centre escalate their attack on the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in New Delhi on the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.
Seven CPI-M workers were killed in police firing during the first phase of the agitation in Mudigonda in Khammam district on July 28.
The communist parties have already declared that they would intensify the agitation in the second phase and several central leaders would also take part in it.
CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat Tuesday addressed a public meeting at Mudigonda to declare that the agitation would not stop till their demands were met.
“The land agitation is of national importance. All of us from the national leadership will participate in the struggle,” said Karat while unveiling a memorial constructed in memory of those killed in police firing.
The Left parties are demanding that the government distribute all surplus land among poor and take back the lands originally allotted to poor but bought by rich.
They are also demanding constitution of an independent, seven-member commission with powers of a civil court to oversee identification and distribution of land to the poor.