National Left leaders to take part in land stir in AP

Hyderabad, Aug 3 (UNI) Spurning the offer of ''friendship'' by Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, the CPI(M) today said they would intensify their stir for land to the poor in Andhra Pradesh with the participation of their national leaders from August 21.

Even as Dr Reddy, currently camping in New Delhi, described the Left parties as ''friendly parties'' making a ''friendly'' demand to the Government to speed up allocation of cultivable land and house sites to the poor, CPI(M) Secretariat member Y V Rao told reporters here that ''friendship'' was not possible with the Congress Government.

''A struggle is a struggle. There can be no scope for any friendly struggle,'' Mr Rao said.

The Government was trying to suppress their stir by foisting 'attempt to murder' cases on agitators, incarcerating over 4,000 activists and refusing to concede their ''genuine demands'', the Marxist leader alleged.

To focus the nation's attention on the land struggle and brutal killing of seven activists in police firing in Mudigonda village in Khammam district and express solidarity with the Communists, comrades from Kerala would visit the city tomorrow and from West Bengal on August seven.

Meanwhile, CPI(ML) New Democracy Party decided to continue its struggle for land to the poor on its own as the stir, led by the CPI and CPI(M), was turning into a ''political struggle'' and the main objective of the agitation was being sidetracked, its state Executive member G Divakar said.

The BJP too jumped on the land movement wagon with its state unit President B Dattatreya informing reporters here that his party would shortly launch a stir to press for implementation of the 104 recommendations of the Koneru Ranga Rao Committee report in toto.

Even as the CPI(M) leader maintained that there was no scope for talks with the Government till it conceded their demands, including constitution of an independent Land Commission, Pradesh Congress Chief Spokesman P Venkata Rao told reporters that talks were the only way out to find a solution to the land issue, pending for decades.

Constitution of an independent Commission would only add to the woes of the poor as it would lead to more litigation in the courts.

UNI