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Political Notes: Change course or pay the price, warns CPI(M)

	April 23, 2007

In the severest threat it has held out to the UPA coalition, the CPI(M) said that the Government should change course since the failure to do so will extract a heavy political price. A lead article in the latest issue of party weekly, People’s Democracy, said that the Government should not take the support of the Left parties for granted “by posing the threat of the BJP’s come back.”



“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 ground 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,” the article said.



The political situation was marked by a growing disenchantment with the UPA Government among the people.



It objected to the Government going ahead with negotiations with the United States for nuclear cooperation despite opposition at home, and for being silent on the hostile stance taken by the U.S. on the transfer of sensitive technology.



The Finance Minister, it charged, “glibly talks” of achieving a 10 per cent growth when he should be seriously tackling inflation and price rise. His other concerns seemed to be how to get the pension fund privatised and raise the foreign direct investment cap in insurance.



The Commerce Minister, it said, was bent upon bringing in FDI in retail “by hook or by crook.”



Veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu, however, said that the Left would stand by the UPA. “Despite differences on fundamental issues, we are not thinking of withdrawing support to the UPA Government for the simple reason that the BJP will use the opportunity to stage a comeback to power,” Basu told reporters in Kolkata. Basu also contradicted the claim that his party had discussed review of support to the UPA Government. Incidentally, Basu had made a similar statement when CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan said that the Left may soon have to introspect and review support to the UPA.





Insurance reforms off track



Insurance reforms have hit a roadblock with the Left parties digging in their heels on all insurance proposals and not just on the issue of foreign equity.



The Left parties have objected to the proposal to hike the paid up capital of Life Insurance Corporation from Rs. 5 crore to Rs. 100 crore to comply with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority requirements. They have also opposed granting permission to foreign reinsurance firms to operate through branches in the country. They said that they would not accept any dilution of government equity in state-owned insurance companies.



The meeting of the Group of Ministers on Insurance reforms

proved inconclusive with the Left parties not yielding from their positions. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who heads the GoM, has said that another meeting will be convened at a political level once Parliament resumes its session this week.





Left has its way on Kolkata airport



Bowing to pressure from the Left, the Committee on Infrastructure (CoI) constituted by the Prime Minister has decided to give the Airports Authority of India exclusive rights to modernise Kolkata airport. The Left was against private developers rebuilding and developing infrastructure for the airport. The CoI which met in New Delhi under the chairmanship of Dr. Manmohan Singh allocated Rs. 1542 crore for the first phase of development of the airport.





Congress plans all-faith meets



The Congress is planning to organise a series of Sarva Dharma (all-religions) conventions in Madhya Pradesh. This is to counter the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s bid to communalise the situation by hosting “Hindu Sammelans” in the state where Assembly elections are scheduled to take place next year.



“They are trying to replicate the Gujarat model in MP by trying to divide the people on communal lines,” alleged V. Naraynaswamy, AICC general secretary in charge of the state.



According to him, the VHP-Bajrang Dal have held such meetings at places like Indore, Jabalpur, Narsingpur and Rajgarh, the home turf of Congress leader and former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh.



Though the general secretary was tight-lipped about exactly how the Congress intended to take on the new saffron challenge in the state where it had lost the 2003 Assembly polls, there are indications that it might organise its own set of all-religion congregations to expose the saffron camp’s divisive agenda.