Sixth Assam State Conference of CPI(ML)

The Sixth Assam State Conference of CPI(ML) was held on 10-12 September at the tea garden town of Bragaon in Sonitpur district on the banks of the Brahmaputra . The founding State Conference of the Party was held in this District twenty years back. The Conference was inaugurated by veteran Communist leader and poet Comrade Harendranath Barthakur, member of the CPI (ML) Central Control Commission, who hoisted the Party flag and laid flowers at the Martyrs' Column. The Conference venue was decorated with a statue of an Assamese peasant couple with the red flag and sickle in hand.

The delegate session had a presidium comprising of  Comrades Subhas Sen, Bhadrawati Gogoi, Robin Goswami and Halan Purty. The Draft Document was presented by State Secretary Rubul Sarma. Delegates discussed the document and made many positive suggestions and amendments.

 General Secretary Comrade Dipankar addressed the Conference, emphasising the special responsibility of the Assam comrades to articulate the voice of the whole of the North East. He called upon them to take special initiatives in solidarity with the Manipuri people's struggle against state repression. He castigated PM Manmohan Singh for refusing to declare the devastating floods of Assam a national calamity, despite being a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam . He called upon the people to foil the attempts of the AGP-BJP to use the Census 2001 to fan up communal passions against the bogey of ‘infiltration'. In addition to the Party's basic work among rural and tea garden labourers, he suggested that we focus on the cultural front, women's front and workers of the organized sector, in order to give our movement a State-wide dimension.

 104 delegates from Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Nagaon, Jorhat, Sonitpur, Barpeta and Guwahati attended the Conference. 22% of the delegates were women, 24,27% of the delegates were tea garden workers, while 17.84% were agrarian labourers. There was a strong presence of cultural groups and many rousing songs by members of the Jan Sanskriti Parishad.

The Conference elected a new 17-member Assam State Committee  which re-elected Comrade Rubul Sharma the State Secretary. This was followed by the address of the Central Observer, Party CC Member Swapan Mukherjee. The Conference passed several resolutions - to send a  delegation of cultural, student and women's groups to Manipur, to condemn the state repression in Karbi Anglong, and to hold a massive rally of tea garden workers in guwahati against the cholera deaths in the gardens, and a mass convention of organized sector workers on the issue of bonus and against the privatization of the electricity board.

A mass meeting of thousands of rural and tea garden workers was organized on September 11 at Bishnu-Jyoti grounds, which was addressed by Comrade Dipankar, Swapan Mukharjee, Rubul Sarma and Bibek Das.