CPIML Liberation

Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, CPI (ML) response to 30th June 2025 Press Release of Election Commission of India on Bihar SIR

The more the ECI seeks to provide clarification about the Special Intensive Revision of the Electoral Roll in Bihar, the more confusing and misleading it gets.

1. Why is the ECI now trying to trivialise the SIR by saying rolls are revised annually? The last time a Special Intensive Revision was conducted was 22 years ago. It is certainly not a routine annual exercise.

2. Only citizens are entitled to vote, but never before in India electors were asked to prove their citizenship. The onus was on the state to prove otherwise. Now every elector is being doubted and asked to prove his or her citizenship with the help of documents that many in India still do not possess.

3. It is the state's responsibility to register every birth. No birth becomes invalid because of non-registration. Rather than asking people to excavate past records, let the state ensure universal registration of births and deaths to ensure automatic updating of records.

4. The ECI offers no explanation as to why it had no prior consultation with any political party before launching the SIR? Why was it announced all of a sudden? When demonetisation or Notebandi was announced all on a sudden the government said it wanted to catch black money holders unawares. Why did the ECI want to catch voters off guard?

5. It is little consolation to know that voters who can trace their legacy to the 2003 electoral roll will not have to provide birth records of their parents. The question is not so much about numbers, it is about the process and its consequence.

6. While the ECI now seeks to provide false comfort by talking of the 4.96 crore voters who will not have to submit documents, what about the 3 crore who will have to submit them? What about the massive number of electors who are likely to be disenfranchised in the process?

7. The ECI must withdraw this arbitrary and utterly ill-planned and non-transparent fiat and conduct the elections on the basis of normal updating of the electoral roll as has been done in every election over the last two decades. The focus must be on facilitating electors in the exercise of their franchise and not creating difficulties and excluding electors from the election process.

Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, CPI (ML) statement on RSS leader Hosbole 's remark on removal of words--socialist and secular-- from the Preamble of the Constitution of India.

Even after the Supreme Court rejected petitions demanding dropping the epithets socialist and secular from the Preamble to the Constitution of India, the RSS has reiterated the demand. This stems from the Sangh-BJP design to change the Constitution and strip it of its democratic content. The epithets 'socialist' and 'secular' may have been explicitly added through the 42nd Amendment, but the various articles supporting India's secular framework and socialist orientation have all along been part of the basic structure of the Constitution.

In fact the RSS has a problem with every marker of the constitutional republic including 'sovereign' and 'democratic'. The Modi government has been systematically mortgaging India's economic sovereignty and foreign policy autonomy to the US-Israel axis and subverting India's parliamentary democracy to subject India to an effectively presidential form of government. The temporary Emergency of 1975 made India realise the value of democracy and in 1977 Indian people electorally rejected the Emergency.

The 2024 mandate has made it clear that the people of India will not brook the ongoing assault on the Constitution and will surely overcome the undeclared permanent Emergency of the Modi-Shah era.

Modi Government’s Bulldozer on Urban Poor Continues Unabated!

Modi Government’s bulldozers continue to demolish the homes of urban poor without any rehabilitation and compensation. Despite a case pending before the Delhi High Court, which clearly sought an explanation from the authorities regarding the legality of the blanket notices being served to residents that had no details of house/survey number, etc., the homes of the poor are being demolished in contradiction with law. 

The Railway authorities today, aided by Delhi Police carried out another round of arbitrary demolitions of the settlements in Wazirpur area of Delhi. The police are resorting to intimidation and brutality against the Wazirpur residents, as also the CPI(ML) State Secretary Ravi Rai and state committee member Sweta Raj and other CPI(ML) activists.

It is important to note, the first round of demolitions was carried out by the railway authority in the Wazirpur area on 02.06.2025, which was in complete violation of the rule of law and their own notices. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in various judgments has clearly held that residential settlements cannot be demolished without providing any alternate accommodation. The same is being openly flouted by the authorities in Wazirpur. 

Similarly, a notice dated 19.05.2025, based on which earlier demolitions took place, mentions the demolition of the second floor of the existing settlements, which are blocking the visibility of the railway signal. However, the railway authority has violated this notice by razing settlements which do not interfere with railway signal visibility! 

Even today, the railway authority is continuing to demolish those houses which do not fall under the purview of the notice. They are misusing the law to raze the houses of the poor people. The BJP government in Delhi came to power by promising housing for the urban poor. However, their silence on the matter when the houses are being demolished exposes their hypocrisy and complicity in destroying the lives and homes of the working class in the city. 

CPI(ML) Delhi will immediately begin relief operations for the affected people of Wazirpur. CPI(ML) Delhi demands an immediate halt on all demolitions and to ensure rehabilitation and compensation to the affected people.

#DelhiNews #demolition #Wazirpur

PRESS RELEASE | CPI(ML) Liberation Opposes Sudden Electoral Roll Revision in Bihar, Warns of Mass Disenfranchisement

On June 25, 2025, CPI(ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner of India, expressing strong objections to the Election Commission’s decision to conduct a “Special Intensive Revision” of the electoral roll in Bihar.

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Full text:

To,
The Chief Election Commissioner
Election Commission of India, New Delhi

Subject: Regarding “Special Intensive Revision” of the electoral rolls in Bihar.

Sir,

We are shocked that ahead of the 2025 Bihar State Assembly elections, the Election Commission of India has suddenly ordered a massive “Special Intensive Revision” of the electoral roll in Bihar. The ECI expects to conduct complete house-to-house enumeration of more than 78 million voters of Bihar within just one month and collect filled in enumeration forms from all. The 2003 voter list which the ECI proposes to treat as the base list had some 50 million voters. Voters added subsequently will have to furnish a whole range of identity proofs. Electors not able for some reason to furnish necessary documents during this time frame will be liable to be deleted from the electoral roll and hence deprived from their voting right.

In terms of its scale and nature, this special intensive revision will be akin to the NRC exercise in Assam. In Assam, it took six years for the government to complete the exercise and even then the Assam government is not ready to accept the NRC as the final list of citizens. The population covered in Assam was 33 million while the EC expects to cover close to 80 million electors in Bihar in just one month, that too the month of July when Bihar has a busy monsoon and agriculture season. Additionally, it is well known that millions of electors in Bihar work outside of the state.

The last time such an intensive revision was conducted in Bihar was in 2002 when there were no elections approaching and the size of the electorate was around 50 million. Our party has been most closely involved with the landless poor's right to vote movement in Bihar and we are afraid that a special intensive revision campaign within such a short time frame ahead of the elections will result in utter chaos and large-scale inaccuracies and deletions. We therefore request you to drop the logistically absurd idea of a special intensive revision at this period and carry out normal updating of the electoral roll.

We hope you will seriously respond to our concern and make sure that in the 75th anniversary of the Constitution and the Republic, the people of Bihar are not deprived of their fundamental democratic right to vote.

Sincerely,

Dipankar Bhattacharya
General Secretary,
CPI(ML) Liberation

Joint Statement Issued by Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, Revolutionary Socialist Party and All India Forward Bloc

Support the July 9 General Strike

The five undersigned Left parties extend their full support to the countrywide general strike called on July 9, 2025, by the Joint Platform of Trade Unions, comprising ten Central Trade Unions (CTUs) and independent all-India sectoral federations and associations. The general strike has been called mainly against the implementation of the Labour Codes, which are a key part of the corporate agenda aimed at severely curtailing the basic democratic rights of workers, including their right to organise and undertake collective action.

The BJP-led government, now in its third term, is aggressively advancing its neoliberal agenda, of which the Labour Codes are a central component. It is aggressively moving towards the privatisation of vital national resources, particularly in strategic sectors such as defence and communications. It is also seeking to suppress all opposition to these anti-worker policies.

The July 9 general strike reiterates the demands raised by the trade unions, which also reflect the concerns of peasants, agricultural workers, and the broader public. The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, agricultural workers’ organsations have also extended their support to the general strike and called for massive mobilisations on the day. The general strike, along with these solidarity actions by peasantry, will help strengthen the unity of the working people against attempts to divide them and spread hatred.

The Left parties call upon the people to support the general strike and urge all our units to actively campaign and mobilise in large numbers to ensure its success.

D Raja, General Secretary, CPI
MA Baby, General Secretary, CPI(M)
Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, CPI(ML) Liberation
Manoj Bhattacharya,General Secretary, RSP
G Devarajan, General Secretary, Forward Bloc

Condemn US Bombing of Iran
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Joint Statement Issued by Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)Liberation, Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc
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The undesigned five Left parties strongly condemn the United States' bombing of Iran. This is a grave violation of Iranian sovereignty and the UN Charter, and it will inflame global tensions, destabilise West Asia and have severe economic repercussions.

The US and Israel are justifying their attacks by claiming that Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. However, it is important to note that the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, stated on 19 June: “We did not have any proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon”. Even US intelligence agencies acknowledged that they did not possess conclusive evidence indicating that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon. Furthermore, Iran remains a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Despite these facts, Israel launched an attack on Iran on 12 June to sabotage any potential negotiations between Iran and the US. Now, the US has joined Israel in this act of aggression, even though President Trump had given a two-week window for talks. This clearly demonstrates that the US-Israel axis has little regard for their own intelligence assessments or any diplomatic process, and is intent on imposing war on Iran and the entire West Asian region. This makes it evident that the real intention is to destroy Iran, establish imperialist hegemony over West Asia, and control the global flow of resources. This attack is aimed at serving the interests of the military-industrial complex and enabling international capital to navigate its way out of the prolonged crisis.

The US deployed B-2 stealth bombers to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran, reenacting the invasion of Iraq, which was also launched on similarly unverified claims that were later proven false. It is ironic that US, the only country to have ever used a nuclear weapon – despite Japan being ready to negotiate at the end of the Second World War – is now speaking about the threat of nuclear weapons!
The US attack will, in all likelihood, drastically escalate the conflict, with disastrous implications for global peace and the livelihoods of ordinary people – especially in countries like India, which rely heavily on West Asia for oil imports and opportunities for migrant labour. The already burdened working masses will be the worst affected by the economic fallout of the war.

The Indian government must immediately abandon its pro-US, pro-Israel foreign policy stance and join global efforts to stop the war. We urge all peace-loving people of our country to unite in condemning the US attack and to organise protest actions against this imperialist aggression.

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MA Baby, General Secretary, CPI(M)
D Raja, General Secretary, CPI
Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary, CPI(ML) Liberation
Manoj Bhattacharya,General Secretary, RSP
G Devarajan, General Secretary, Forward Bloc

Red Flags Rise, Voices for Land Rights Roar in Rayagada.

On 18 June 2025, Adivasis of Tela Sikabadi village in Jaredi panchayat under Kolnara block of Rayagada district (Odisha) hoisted the red flag on their ancestral forest land. This powerful assertion of land rights was led by CPI-ML Liberation and Adivasi Sangrasa Morcha (ASM), who stood firmly with the villagers in reclaiming what has belonged to them for generations.

Tela Sikabadi is a tribal-dominated forest village surrounded by hills, home to 80 Adivasi families. For centuries, they have lived on and protected this land. Yet the government continues to deny them legal recognition. Article 5 of the Constitution affirms their claims, but instead of justice, they face betrayal. Non-tribal encroachment is increasing, and tribal land is being handed over to outsiders and corporations, while the original inhabitants are pushed aside.

Across Rayagada district, Adivasi villages face the same injustice. On 6 June 2025, ASM staged a protest at the Kolnara Tehsil Office and submitted a 21-point memorandum to the Chief Minister, demanding justice and recognition of tribal land rights. With no response from the administration, the people took matters into their own hands.

Led by CPI-ML leader and ASM activist Tripathi Gamango and former Sarpanch Anirudh Nishika, the villagers declared that the Adivasi struggle for jal, jungle, zameen will only grow stronger.

#CPIML #TribalRights #AdivasiRights #indigenous #adivasi #Landrights