The anger of the common people, workers, kisan and other toiling people expressed itself in the Protest Day organised on 8th November 2017, the first anniversary of the demonetisation / note ban, which created miseries and imposed serious hardships to them. 30 persons died while standing in the queue for hours for getting some money from the ATMs. The small business has seriously suffered. The GDP has gone down drastically. The people were running here and there to get a few notes for their day to day expenditure.

None of the great aims of note ban was not implemented as the note ban like confiscating black money, containing terrorism  could be achieved.

The Central Government should apologise to the people for Tuglak like action taken by the government, creating a lot of difficulties to the people.

The three day Maha Dharna being organised on 9-11 November 2017 against the wrong policies of the government and on a 12 point Charter of Demands by the ten national trade union centres and federations of central/state government employees, PSU unions etc. has started on 9th with massive participation. Lakhs of workers with their own union flags are participating in the dharna, coming from all parts of the country. I could participate in the same on 9th instant. A brief report on the same is given below:

The thousands of workers who stormed the national capital and assembled at Parliament Street in the national capital Delhi, to participate in the first day of the three days ‘mahapadav’ on 9th November 2017 enthusiastically endorsed the call of the speakers to intensify the struggle against the anti worker, anti people and anti national policies of the BJP led government and prepare for a countrywide indefinite general strike if the government fails to concede their demands.

Workers from all over the country representing many sector – public and private, permanent employees and contract, casual workers, state and central government employees, banks, insurance, telecom, railways, defence, and the various schemes of the government of India participated in the ‘mahapadav’ on the first day.

Ashok Singh (INTUC), Gurudas Dasgupta (AITUC), HS Sidhu (HMS), Tapan Sen (CITU), Satyawan (AIUTUC), G Devarajan (TUCC), Manali (SEWA), Rajiv Dimri (AICCTU), M Shanmugam (LPF) and Ashok Ghosh (UTUC) addressed the gathering in the first session presided over by Sanjay Singh (INTUC), Ramendra Kumar (AITUC), Raja Sridhar (HMS), Hemalata (CITU), RK Sharma (AIUTUC), Naren Chatterjee (TUCC), Sonia (SEWA), Santosh Rai (AICCTU), Subbaraman (LPF) and Shatrujit Singh (UTUC).

Leaders of the federations spoke in the second part of the first session. It was most significant that the leaders of the two major national federations of the railway employees – Shiv Gopal Mishra, general secretary of All India Railwaysmen’s Federation and Raghavaiagh, general secretary of National Federation of Indian Railwaymen – have announced that they would join the indefinite strike whenever the joint trade union platform gave the call. Leaders of several other all Industrial federations including Venkatachalam, general secretary of All India Bank Employees’ Association, Subhash Lamba, additional general secretary of All India State Government Employees’ Association and secretary of Electricity Employees’ Federation of India, KK Divakaran, general secretary of All India Road Transport Workers’ Federation, C Sreekumar, general secretary of All India Defence Employees’ Federation, Jagdeesh Sreemali, VS Dahiya, GR Shiv Shankar, Ravi Sen, Peelimuthu, Kalyan Sengupta, also joined them in endorsing the call addressed the huge gathering and announced they would join the indefinite country wide general strike whenever the joint trade union platform took the decision. Thampan Thomas (HMS), Vijay Pal Singh (AIUTUC), Anil Sharma (TUCC), Sonia (SEWA), Mahendra Parida (AICCTU), Natarajan (LPF) and Thomas Joseph (UTUC) also addressed