On 8 December, just two days after the Babri Masjid demolition day, workers from various sectors such as tea gardens, jute, construction, hosiery, power, coliery, defence, railways and transport along with mid-day meal, ASHA, anganwadi and beedi workers, street vendors, domestic workers, government employees and workers who were employed in mills which have now been shut down, assembled on Rani Rashmani Road in the heart of Esplanade in Kolkata. Earlier in the day, several rallies – most notably those starting off from Howrah and Sealdah railway stations – brought busy city roads to a standstill and culminated at the assembly point. Pressing issues of concern in various sectors were discussed and points of struggle charted out in speeches given by leaders of the respective sectors. In the Jute sector it was resolved to defeat the Central government’s buckling under pressure from the polythene lobby and its attempt to remove the government’s regulatory bindings on the exclusive usage of jute bags in transporting food grains. Comrades Omprakash Rajbhar – jute worker and leader, Basudeb Bose, Atanu Chakrabarty, Kishore Sarkar, Dibakar Bhattacharjee, Meena Pal, Nabendu Dasgupta addressed the assembly, along with CPI(ML) state secretary Comrade Partha Ghosh. Four political resolutions were passed unanimously by workers. They rejected the communal polarization by the Sangh brigade and vowed to intensify working class resistance against corporate-communal fascism. It was resolved to fight back the Labour law reforms proposed by the Central government. The rally rejected undemocratic anti-labour measures of the Mamata Banerjee government like curbing the freedom of press and pledged to rollback the anti-peasant West Bengal Agricultural Marketing Bill that the state government has tabled in the state assembly. The rally also resolved to support the upcoming Taxi strike and join hands with the fighting Taxi workers. A heavy presence of women workers marked the rally.
