The Indian National Trinamool Trade Union Congress organised a meeting of its members at the Netaji Indoor Stadium today. Trinamool Congress Chairperson Mamata Banerjee addressed the attending members.
Highlights of her speech:
Sometimes we have to come together to fight. We many not always get the results we want, but we have to try anyway.
In 2012, 6 Trinamool ministers had left the Manmohan Singh Government in protest against its decision to implement 100% FDI in retail because we believe the cause of the people is more important than holding on to ministries.
Plans are being made to close down Bengal Chemicals; 42 PSUs are being divested; banks are being amalgamated and their headquarters moved elsewhere. Due to this, many bank workers would lose their jobs. Nobody is sure these days of the state of their jobs and of the value of money in the future.
The post offices have no work other than distributing letters about the Central Government’s achievements. Their work is getting reduced.
Even after demonetisation, bank officials worked their hearts out. So what happened to all the money collected? Nobody knows.
After making the banks do its bidding, is this how the Central Government will treat them? The whole banking sector is in a mess.
The armed forces are the best means for protecting the country. Instead of protecting, they are being used to threaten people. People are in the dark about many things. The Centre also wants to privatise the ordnance factories.
Coal is the pride of Bangla; if Coal India is divested 100 per cent, electricity production will be hit hard.
We fear that the Indian Railways, the largest public sector undertaking in the world, will be fully privatised in the coming days.
A conspiracy is being hatched to divest a profitable company like Air India.
It is the duty of the Government to be beside the people in times of hardship. Nobody is paying heed to the people’s problems nowadays.
The television and print media, which have the power to take up the issues being faced by the people, have become deaf and dumb; they are just parroting the Centre’s instructions.
The Centre is trying to incite the people and spreading hatred, just to improve its TRP. And those who love the people are constantly working for their benefits.
SAIL, Hindustan Paper, Chittaranjan Locomotives, Life Insurance Corporation, Haldia Port, Kolkata Port, BSNL are all being planned to be privatised. Things are in a terrible mess.
People have lost their right to speak. That’s why there is a need for them to come together to speak up. Social media platforms should be used to mount protests. People need to think differently in order to launch protests because there is great value in it.
Democracy is our asset. There is democracy in Bangla but many States are suffering for the lack of it.
You saw from the Jadavpur University incident what their attitude is. You cannot use force to keep people in the dark forever.
The people of Asansol and Durgapur voted wholesale for the BJP, yet now the Centre is planning to privatise Chittaranjan Locomotives, ECL, BSNL.
On the part of the State Government, we merged only those companies which were running at a loss. We didn’t take away people’s jobs.
Politics and love for the people of the country are not one and the same in most cases now. One should work for the people once elected, whatever their political affiliations.
Continue your fight the way you are doing it. The hunger strike has been going on for 25 days. There are ordnance factories and banks in other States too but the people are afraid to protest.
Since others are not protesting, it is the people of Bangla who will speak up for the people. Bangla will show the way.
If our fight helps people in other States, we will be happy because we want to progress taking everyone along.
There are three protest programmes before Durga Pujo. I am creating a core group that will coordinate all the protests and meetings, and will also take up the issues in Parliament. The members are Subrata Bakshi, Dola Sen, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Saugata Roy, Derek O’Brien, Subrata Mukherjee, Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, Partha Chatterjee, Pradip da, Malay Ghatak and Purnendu Bose.
She announced the following protest programmes:
Sep 26: Protest meeting in front of Gun & Shell Factory, Cossipore
Sep 27: Protest meeting in front of Coal India headquarters at 1pm
Oct 18: Protest march from Sealdah to Fairlie Place via Esplanade from 1.30pm
48-hour dharna in New Delhi
Post-Oct 18: Protest meetings in Chennai, Mumbai, Bihar and other places across the country
NRC is nothing to be afraid of; it won’t happen, assures Didi
I am requesting you to enlist your names in the electoral rolls so that you are able to vote. There will be no NRC anywhere.
Some people are wrongly bringing a communal angle to NRC, and saying that it is meant to divide Hindus and Muslims. Yet despite that the NRC in Assam has excluded 13 lakh Hindus.
Do not fear NRC. Some TV channels are spreading false news. Don’t watch those channels.
There will be a protest against in the NRC in those places where people have died in fear of it.
We have to fight this battle together. My Pujo greetings to all.
