Cpm Announces Stir Against Uf Economic Policies

The party stopped short of quitting the Front, of which it is a founder member. However, there were strong signals in the central committees three-day deliberations that a divorce would come sooner or later, unless there was a drastic shift away from freemarket policies.

Though the CPI-M has been continuously voicing its concerns against the UF government for carrying forward the IMF-World Bank framework of policies, this is for the first time that the partys highest decision-making body has come out so strongly against the government it has been supporting.

The resolution attacked in particular the governments initiative on further disinvestment of public sector unit shares, liberalisation of foreign direct investment and a general deviation from the social and economic commitment outlined in the UFs common minimum programme.

The party felt that in some cases such as liberalising the regulation of FDI investment, the government had gone further ahead than the Narasimha Rao regime. The resolution described the recent mineral policy as blatantly in favour of foreign multinationals and opposed the governments proposal to do away with quantitative restrictions on imports in the next five years. Such a move will affect indigenous industry and employment and worsen the balance of payments position, it held.

Through disinvestment of PSU shares during the fist two rounds, the shares of the most profitable concerns are being disinvested, the resolution charged and pointed out that the commision would process only the third round of disinvestment. The CPI-M wishes to point out to the government, the experience of the disinvestment of shares in the last financial year when a proposed Rs 7,000 crore disinvestment yielded a paltry Rs 167 crore. Asking the government to desist from such moves, it said: The UF government should not sell away the public assets cheaply to private parties and bear the ignominy of such a scandal.

The UF should realise that such policies were against peoples interest and thus engender popular discontent. The Narasimha Rao government got isolated from the people and was decisively rejected precisely due to such policies, it held.

The central committee noted with concern that certain provisions in the UF s CMP have not been taken up seriously for implementation by the five-month-old government.

These provisions are a commitment to strengthen the public distribution system and increasing buydgetary allocation in social sector areas such as health and education. Making legislation in favour of working people and provision of secret ballot for trade unions recognition have yet to be initiated and adopted, the resolution pointed out.

The CPI-M, on its own part, would mobilise people for mass action and struggle to oppose such anti-people policies and to press the government for implementation of those provision of the CMP which are in the interest of the common people, it added.

The CPI-M also opposed the Governments announcement on separate statehood to Uttarakhand and charged that some secular leaders had supported the demand originally voiced by the Hindutva advocates. It held that the announcement on Uttarakhand had opened the floodgates for similar demands in other states. However, the resoltuion clarified that the CPI-M was opposed to the demand for a separate statehood for Gorkhaland as a solution to fulfil aspirations of about six lakh Nepali-speaking people living in the Darjeeling hill areas.

Surjeet for inviting BJP in UP

The CPM appears to have reconciled to the formation of a BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, at least for a few days, even as it publicly accuses the Congress of blocking the formation of a secular government there. According to a senior CPM leader, party general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet told the 71-member central committee meeting in his inaugural address on Tuesday that the BJP should be invited to form a government in Uttar Pradesh, as there was no chance for the United Front or the BSP-Congress combine to form one. Surjeet advocated that the BJP, which is the single largest party, should be given a chance to form a government and prove its majority, he said.

Surjeet listed three options to resolve the current impasse in Uttar Pradesha BJP government, a BJP-BSP coalition government and dissolution of the assembly. On principle, he contended, the party should not support dissolution.