Protest fasts, processions, public meetings against the Centre's economic reforms recruitment and a resolve not to allow Gujarat-like communal violence to derail the working class movement marked the May Day celebrations across the country Wednesday.
Trade union activists and leaders marched through the streets and addressed rallies resenting the Centre's privatisation and "anti-labour" policies at the dictates of the World Bank and WTO and vowed to fight them. Addressing a rally in Kolkata, veteran marxist leader Jyoti Basu said the NDA government at the Centre had crippled the country industrially by relying on foreign capital and closing down public sector undertakings. Describing Gujarat violence 'perpetrated by the communal BJP and other Sangh Parivar outfits" as a ploy to divide the working classes, Basu said they were leading the country to 'barbarism'. Addressing a May Day function, Basu's successor as West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya asked the labour class to be on guard against recurrence of Gujarat-type situation in in the stgate and asserted the Left front government would never allow policies counter to labour interest. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, considered a techno-savy pro-reforms man, said the reforms being introduced in every sector have infused competition and "We have to keep pace with the changes in the world otherwise we will be left behind". Bureau Report