Left to boycott UPA meetings

Manmohan govt's persistence with disinvestment not acceptable: Karat

The Left parties put the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in a spot of bother by deciding to boycott all Left-UPA meetings.

CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said the Left parties had written a letter to UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and a copy had been sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The source of discord, according to Karat, is that despite several meetings with the UPA on disinvestment, the government has persisted with its policy of disinvestment even while retaining 51 per cent equity, making a clever differentiation between disinvestment and privatisation, something which the Left does not accept.

In a letter to Gandhi, signed by all Left leaders after the intra-Left meet, the point is made forcefully. "There is no scope for misunderstanding here.

"The navaratnas like Bhel can go to the market for raising capital for their own needs. It is not for the government to sell it shares and appropriate those proceeds. The proposals for a national investment fund is merely a mechanism to facilitate the government appropriating the proceeds of disinvestment," states the letter.

"It is well known that successive rounds of disinvestment will pave the way for the eventual privatisation of the PSUs concerned. It is not enough to say 'disinvestment' does not mean privatisation. We are surprised by the repeated assertion that the government will retain 51 per cent share in these enterprises which means that it intends to sell 49 per cent shares. From 51 per cent to 49 per cent is just a small step. It is creeping privatisation," the letter says.

The strong step taken by the Left follows attempts by veteran Marxist leader Harkishen Singh Surjeet to meet the Prime Minister yesterday and Singh's visit to Surjeet today.

Karat said during Surjeet's meeting with Singh, the Prime Minister wanted to know "what the problem was". Despite all that, Karat said, "no useful purpose will be served in attending meetings of the co-ordination committee".

Asked whether the UPA government would last its full term in the wake of the differences with the Left, Karat said, "Ask them." This move, in fact, has come as a bolt from the blue for the Congress and other UPA allies, which immediately went underground when asked to react.

The move is also one of the first major initiatives taken by the Left after Karat was elected general secretary of the CPI(M). Karat is known to be a hard-liner compared with his predecessor Surjeet, who is credited with being the architect of the UPA alliance.

The recent petrol price hike and the finance ministry's refusal to bankroll a 9.5 per cent interest rate for employees' provident fund have also contributed to this decision by the Left which feels that it must make a statement well before its electoral campaign gets under way in West Bengal and Kerala, states where they have a high political stake.