Offer A Deal, Mr C

On Wednesday evening, I switched on the TV news to find out about the Indian team for the West Indies tour. What I got instead was Sita Ram Yechury, youngest member of the CPI(M) politburo and one of the two reputedly modern brains in it.

He was being interviewed about the United Fronts steering committee meeting earlier in the day. The question was about the food subsidy and how much it would amount to if everyone below the poverty line approximately 30 crore people were to be sold foodgrains at half the PDS current price. The government says it could cost as much as Rs 10,000 crore, said his interlocutor, where will the money come from?

 

Mr Yechurys response was interesting. Oh, we dont think so, he said. We believe that it will be much less than that. We have asked them to show us their calculations.

In such matters there are always several ways of calculating the same thing. So it is futile to enter into a numbers argument. Both sides can cry victory and run and no one will be any the wiser, except in respect of a broad order of magnitudes.

But lets assume that the figure is not Rs 10,000 crore but even more, say, double at Rs 20,000 crore. Should that deter the State from making a determined attempt to sell cheap foodgrains? After all, its not just a question of economics. There is a moral issue as well, which involves each one of the 70 crore people above the poverty line. Try as well, that moral issue cannot be ducked by talking about costs.

This is where Mr Yechury went wrong, tactically at least. Had his motives been pure, rather than political, he would have stressed the moral responsibility of the Indian State to feed its hungry people, not questioned the finance ministrys calculations. By asking for statistical proof, he has not only played into the ministrys hands, he has also shown that he is a rather poor politician.

But never mind all that. What is probably more important is the fact that the Lefts stand on the foodgrains issue provides the finance ministry with an opportunity to make a deal privatisation of the public sector to pay for the increased food subsidy bill.

In other words, the finance ministry should agree to sell grains at half the PDS price to those below the poverty line, provided the Left formally gives up its opposition to the sale of public sector. And the offer should be made loudly and publicly so that the Left is forced to choose between the unions and the rural poor. I suspect it will choose the unions because the rural poor are not really its constituency. It only pretends to speak for them.

Should he make the offer, Mr C will, for the first time, have the upper hand. He can expose the Lefts posturing and put it on the defensive. He will also demonstrate that the UF government is alive to the moral issue which is currently being monopolised by the Left, while he himself appears heartless. The icing on the cake is that, given the time it will take to cover everyone below the poverty line through the PDS, it will take ages before the full bill is presented.

And who knows, when that happens Mr Yechury may himself be finance minister.