Agency report
New Delhi, Apr 20: In one of its harshest tirades against the Congress-led government yet, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) has warned that the ruling coalition cannot take its support for granted if it continues its "neo-liberal" policies. The party has even criticised UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, with whom the CPI (M) is believed to have good relations.
Coming down heavily on the finance, commerce and agriculture ministers in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government and the Planning Commission deputy chairman, the CPI (M) said it could not go along with the government's "anti-people prescriptions."
The CPI (M) along with three other Left parties extends crucial support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
"The Congress leadership should not take the support of the Left parties to the government for granted by posing the threat of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party)," an article in the latest issue of the party mouthpiece People's Democracy said.
"It is precisely because the BJP is benefiting from the Congress stance and the government's policies that the CPI (M) firmly opposes all those political and economic measures which create the grounds for the communal forces to feed on popular discontent.
"The Congress leadership has to ensure that the UPA government changes course. Failure to do so will extract a heavy political price," it cautioned.
The CPI (M) accused Finance Minister P Chidambaram of having "glibly talks of achieving 10 per cent GDP growth at a time when he should have been handling the inflation and price rise.
"There is a disconnect between what the people and even the Congress mass base are expecting and what the UPA government and its ministers are striving for," it said.
"The agriculture minister (Sharad Pawar) seems oblivious that procurement of wheat by the FCI (Food Corporation of India) is languishing, while private traders corner the crop," the CPI (M) said warning that it would have a deleterious effect on the Public Distribution System.
Alleging that the UPA had failed to tackle the agrarian crisis, the party said: "It is still pursuing policies, which will harm agriculture. The terms of the Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN will entail further cuts in the import duties of agricultural commodities."
The article alleged that commerce minister Kamal Nath was "bent upon bringing FDI in retail by hook or by crook."
Interestingly, the party has even criticised UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, with whom the CPI (M) is believed to have good relations.
Pointing out that the Congress president could not stop the entry of multinational giant Wal Mart into the country, it said: "The UPA government and the Congress leadership will be responsible for ruining the livelihood of lakhs of small shopkeepers and petty traders, if the commerce minister has his way."
"The commerce minister is also the ardent advocate of the SEZs (Special Economic Zone) which, in its present form, is designed to promote real estate profiteering and, through exorbitant tax sops, distort the pattern of development in the country.
"The minister's dogged defence of the existing Act and Rules indicates that he is not alone in pushing for this iniquitous model of SEZs."
Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia was also in the line of fire.
Accusing Ahluwalia of pushing through neo-liberal policies, the CPI (M) said: "The UPA government is utilising his position to push through all these measures which it finds politically difficult to adopt."
It also criticised the Congress-led government's foreign policy saying that the UPA was far from implementing the promises in the mutually agreed common minimum programme.