Fm Keeps Hopes Of Subsidy Rollback Alive

Finance minister Yashwant Sinha reassured his party's disgruntled coalition partners yesterday that, although he had not rolled back price increase for subsidised food and fertiliser while piloting the Union Budget, he had asked the Expenditure Commission to report on the possibility of revising the increases within three months.

The allies have not given up and are supposed to meet again tomorrow. However, following the Samata Party's public statement against a rollback earlier this week and the public admonishment of former Union minister Madan Lal Khurana by the Prime Minister, the political manoeuvring to get the allies to stay in line had already been won.

 

The Prime Minister had been in touch with arguably the most powerful of his supporters, Andhra Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, a number of times over the Telugu Desam Party's strong opposition to the hikes. Naidu, who is also concerned about the Sankhya Vahini project and funds under other heads for his state, was evidently persuaded over the past few weeks.

After Vajpayee's clear indication to his party MPs that a roll back might be in the offing, many of the concerned leaders of the coalition expected a roll back announcement even yesterday, during the passage of the Finance Bill.

Now it appears, that was only a tactic to blunt the campaign of the more vociferous of his coalition partners' members, whom their own party chiefs were finding it difficult to control.

For instance, Devendra Prasad Yadav of the Janata Dal (United) had publicly spoken sharply on the issue, although his senior colleagues, Sharad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan, were willing to go along with the Prime Minister's decisions.

As experts point out, an announcement would have come during the passage of the Appropriations Bill on Tuesday. Sinha managed to get around that, the Speaker having prevented the Opposition from even moving any cut motions, leave alone a debate.

Yesterday too, Speaker GMC Balayogi did not give the floor to many of the coalition leaders to seek clarifications from Sinha after his reply to the debate on the Finance Bill. Opposition leaders did take the floor. TDP House leader Yerran Naidu, who had led the coalition partners' chorus of demands for a roll back, did take the floor but was told by Sinha that he would try to target the public distribution system better to ensure that only the poor benefitted.

Some other coalition members haven't accepted the fait accompli yet. Devendra Yadav said yesterday evening that a government could not function without caring for poor people.

After Vajpayee's clear indication to his party's MP that a rollback may be in the offing, many of the concerned leaders of the coalition expected an announcement on the rollback during the passage of the Finance Bill