The CPM’s land struggle is fizzling out without mass support.
According to Laha Gopalan, leader of the Sadhujana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi, “the CPM is worried about the exodus of dalits and downtrodden from the party following the success of the Chengara struggle. It wants to keep them as their obedient cadre. If it had any sincerity it should have implemented the Justice Manoharan commission recommendations asking the government to take over 76,000 acres of land under possession of the Harrison Malayalam, the lease period of which has already expired.”
He said the VS government which had prepared the Chengara package aiming to provide land to 1495 families could provide it only to 74 families. The CPM should have asked the government to take over the 2,600 acres of land sold to Bishop K P Yohannan when Harrison had no right to sell the leased land, he said.
Speaking to Express, Adivasi Gothra Mahasabha state co-ordinator M Geethanandan said the CPM was politicising the issue. The UDF government wants to make Kerala a ‘zero landless’ state. It has also identified 2.32 lakh landless families. By erecting the shacks at the so-called surplus land, the CPM wants to create a law and order issue and sabotage the very cause, he said. ‘’What we want is allotment of sufficient land to the landless belonging to all communities who need land for farming to sustain themselves,’’ he said. He wants both the Left and Right political fronts to evolve a consensus for a package. There was sufficient revenue land in Kasargod, Kannur, Kozhikode and Idukki.
The CPM has also been exposed as it was under the VS government that the required sanction was granted to Aranmula airport project and Kochi medicity project at Kadamakkudy in the environmentally sensitive land.