Brinda Karat at a news meet in Patna on Friday. Picture by Deepak Kumar

CPM politburo member Brinda Karat on Friday slammed the Nitish Kumar government for “dumping” the recommendations of the D Bandyopadhyay Commission “in connivance with the principal Opposition parties on the issue”.

“Why is the government keeping a conspiracy of silence on the issue of implementation of the recommendations of the D Bandyopadhyay Commission? The government has been resorting to the policy of silence and also to maintain a status quo on the issue to support land mafia,” Karat told reporters here.

The commission recommended the registration of sharecroppers and other rights to the landless sharecroppers.

Karat, who was accompanied by party’s state secretary Vijaykant Thakur and All India Democratic Women’s Association state president Rampari, said not a single party has raised the issue of implementation of the D Bandyopadhyay Commission’s recommendations in the Assembly.

“The mafiosi have grabbed the Bhoodan land which was given to landless people,” she said, while making a fervent appeal to the state government to take steps to ensure the possession of the land to the allottee.

The Nitish government had constituted the commission to carry out land reforms. The commission had submitted its full report to the chief minister in April 2008. But later, the government shelved the idea to implement it after it received severe drubbings at the 18-seat by-poll in 2009, a year ahead of the Assembly polls.

On the question of food security, Karat said Left parties have been of the view that all the families — without making any kind of distinction between APL and BPL — should be given 35kg of foodgrain at the rate of Rs 2 per kg.

To put pressure on the UPA government for ensuring food security for all, the party has been collecting the signature of five crore people across the country. It would be submitted before the Prime Minister ahead of the budget session in February.