LAKHIMPUR KHERI SHAHEED KALASH YATRA TO BEGIN FROM PUNE ON OCTOBER 27, CULMINATE IN MUMBAI ON NOVEMBER 18, AND TRAVERSE WHOLE OF MAHARASHTRA
As per the call of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the Lakhimpur Kheri Shaheed Kalash Yatra in Maharashtra will begin at Pune on October 27 from the historic house of Mahatma Jotirao Phule, one of the first champions of the peasantry in India and also a fiery leader of the anti-caste struggle. An impressive joint public meeting will be held at the Hamal Bhawan in Pune.
The Shaheed Kalash Yatra will then traverse almost all the 36 districts of Maharashtra and will culminate jointly on November 18 at the famous Hutatma Chowk in Mumbai, which commemorates the martyrdom of 106 workers and peasants of the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement. Before that the Kalash Yatra will pay homage in Mumbai to the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji at Shivaji Park, the Chaitya Bhumi of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar at Dadar, and the Memorial to Martyr Babu Genu who laid down his life in 1930 in the struggle for the boycott of British imperialist cloth. There will be a large Kisan Mazdoor Mahapanchayat at Azad Maidan in Mumbai.
Both the October 27 and November 18 programmes will be jointly held by all Kisan organisations in the AIKSCC, almost all the trade unions and several organisations of agricultural workers, women, youth and students.
Between October 27 and November 18, all AIKSCC organisations will organise their own independent Shaheed Kalash Yatras in their spheres of influence in Maharashtra. Hundreds of public meetings and press conferences will be held in all the districts of the state.
All these Yatras will pay homage to all the 650 martyrs of the current historic Kisan struggle which is entering its 12th month, and they will concentrate on the immediate demand of the dismissal and arrest of the butcher of Lakhimpur Kheri, MoS for Home Affairs Ajay Mishra Teni. But they will also seek much greater support for the key demands of the nationwide farmers' struggle and will target the anti-peasant, anti-worker, anti-people, pro-corporate, communal and authoritarian policies of the fascistic RSS-BJP central government led by Modi and Shah, which is working as the 'dalal' of its crony corporates like the Ambanis and Adanis, to sell off the country and attack the Constitution.
The district wise programme of the Shaheed Kisan Yatra of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) is as follows:
27 October - Pune
28 October - Satara
29 October - Kolhapur
30 October - Sangli
31 October - Solapur
01 November - Osmanabad/Latur
02 November - Beed
03 November - Aurangabad
07 November - Jalna
08 November - Parbhani/Hingoli
09 November - Nanded
10 November - Yavatmal
11 November - Wardha/Nagpur
12 November - Amravati
13 November - Buldana
14 November - Nandurbar/Dhule
15 November - Nashik
16 November - Ahmednagar
17 November - Thane/Palghar
18 November - Mumbai
Dr Ashok Dhawale, J P Gavit, Kisan Gujar, Arjun Adey, Dr Ajit Nawale