The Himachal Pradesh state secretariat of the Communist Party of India Marxist has condemn the arrest of its state secretary Rakesh Singha, Kuldeep Singh Tanwar Member state secretariat, and other members of the party along-with hundreds of activists of kisan sabha from Theog.
Tikender Singh Panwar, Member State Secretariat, said that it is shocking to note that the administration under the present BJP government is so callous about the people’s problems that none of the administrative officers were present in the region. The kisan sabha had long ago given a call for a blockade despite that there were no efforts on part of the government to initiate a dialogue with the protesters. Today, the blockade continued for over 5 hours but the officers were still unavailable and did nothing to resolve the matter.
The CPIM has stated, the main issue of the struggle is non availability of LPG gas in the region. Here it may be recorded that the supply of gas is done by the civil supplies department which had its store and office in Theog. Later on the department unilaterally shifted the office to Bhatta Kuffar in Shimla which is over 25 km distance from the Tehsil headquarter. In addition to that the people are facing huge shortage of cooking gas cylinders. The people are forced to spend huge money as fare coming first from their villages to Theog, then to BhattaKuffar and then procure cylinders. In this process several days are lost but neither the state government nor the district administration and the civil supplies department have paid any heed to their problems. The other major demand of the agitators is virtually non availability of fertilizers that is forcing the peasants to buy from the open market at exorbitant prices.
The Kisan Sabha is in the forefront alongwith other mass organisations of the region like the Taxi operators, Truck Operators, Vegetable growers’ et al since last 2 months. Several demonstrations have been organised. A chain hunger strike is still going on. Different villages are participating in it. Still the government is unmoved and has done nothing to mitigate the problems. The CPIM announces its supports the peoples struggle of Theog region and added that will mobilise people to ensure that the demands are met with and the voice is not cowed down.
