UPA govt should focus on people, says Yechury

Having extracted an assurance from Prime Minster Manmohan Singh that the Left's expectations would be fulfiled and that the contentious issues of the foreign direct investment and the Word Bank experts would be taken up at the next United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-Left co-ordination committee meeting, the party now seems to be gearing towards issues related to the "common man", as endorsed by the recent CPI(M) politburo meeting.

"We will go to the people if the government acts against the common minimum programme. Our support to the UPA government is based on its actions for the welfare of the common man," CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury said, addressing a student's convention, organised by the Students Federation of India (SFI) in Thiruvananthapuram.

After Saturday's luncheon meeting between CPI(M) leaders Jyoti Basu, Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Yechury, and the Prime Minister and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Yechury had said an employment generation scheme, food-for-work programme, mid-day meal scheme and schemes for rural infrastructure were "in the pipeline and would take a tangible shape in the next couple of weeks".

The demand for the government to keep it's word on these issues, also dubbed the "priorities of the common minimum programme" by an earlier Left parties meeting, are seen to be long-term issues that the Left will take up on a sustained basis.

Yechury today said the UPA government had completed three months in office and there should not be any more delay in implementing the proposals in the common minimum programme for employment generation and rural development.

This along with the need for the government to take a tough stand against the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) campaign "to return to it's hard-line roots" were highlighted by the politburo meeting.

"All secular and democratic forces should counter the BJP efforts to introduce the communal idiom in politics in some garb or the other. A special responsibility devolves upon the Congress leadership and the UPA government in this regard," said a party statement issued after the politburo meeting.

Echoing these thoughts, Yechury today said the economic policies of the previous BJP-led government were "anti-people" and that the UPA government should take steps to change these policies for the common man's welfare.