THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Central secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPI-ML) K.N. Ramachandran has said that his party will launch intense agitations against the proposed `Smart City' project in Ernakulam and all other Special Economic Zone (SEZ) projects in the State. Talking to The Hindu here on Friday, Mr Ramachandran said in the media euphoria that was being created in the name of `successful completion' of the Smart City negotiations, the State Government was cleverly concealing the fact that the project area would be declared as SEZ. It was now well known that as per the SEZ Act of 2005, any region declared as a SEZ would be like a `foreign country' within the country. Most of the laws of the land were not applicable to such regions. They would work as per the wishes of the profit-making multi-national companies, Mr Ramachandran alleged .
Trade union rights

When his attention was drawn to the reported statement of Labour Minister P.K. Gurudasan that the Government would insist on trade union rights within the SEZ, the CPI(ML) leader said these were `irresponsible statements' being made by the mainstream Left Democratic Front (LDF) leaders in order to cover up their betrayal of the commitment to the people.

The SEZ Act was a Central legislation and no amendment had been made to it so far. Then how could the State Government deviate from it? he asked.

The LDF Government took a similar position in the controversies regarding the Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan. They had then argued that they would not accept several conditions of the ADB. But the conditions of the ADB were the same for all the States, he said.

The newly-elected State secretary of the CPI(ML) P.J. James said the party supporters would take out a march to the spot where the proposed Smart City area would come up, within a couple of days. The party cadres would also physically remove the meters on public taps if the Government took such a step as per the dictates of the ADB.

Surrendering to ADB

The CPI(ML) leaders said surrendering to the dictates of the ADB and giving sanction to the projects like SEZ and Smart City, the LDF Government led by V.S. Achuthanandan established that it was moving in a direction totally opposed to the approaches of the first Communist Government in Kerala in 1957


So this Government had no moral or political right to celebrate the 50th year of the first Communist Ministry, they said.They said the party would also launch agitations for the release of prisoners who had completed 14 years of imprisonment

The Hindu