As the elections draw near, the Left and the Congress today fought over the share of credits for the economic developments. During the debate on Supplementary Demands for Grants in the Rajya Sabha, CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury tried several times to “extract” recognition from Finance Minister P Chidambaram for “forcing” the government maintain the right track during the last four years. According to Yechury, “we helped you not to embrace capitalism the way you wanted”.
But Chidambaram was in no mood to give any credit to the estranged Left partners. When Yechury told him to “give the devil its dues”, the finance minister quipped: “The only consistent element about the Left is that they want to call themselves devils.”
The CPI(M) leader tried to prove that because of their pressure the UPA government couldn’t pursue reforms and that guarded approach has kept the Indian economy stable, while many countries are facing troubles during the current financial crisis.
When Yechury mentioned that they didn’t allow the Pension Bill to be passed and raise the cap of insurance FDI, Chidambaram replied that these resistance didn’t do any good for the economy.
A desperate Yechury asked, “tell us who stopped you from the disinvestment of BHEL? Isn’t it because of our pressure?” To this, Chidambaram replied: “The CPI(M) allowed disinvestment of NTPC. But when BHEL was enlisted for disinvestment, they protested. Our idea was never to turn BHEL into a non-government entity but to bring it under better corporate discipline.”
Taking a dig at Yechury for giving a lecture on “Marxist economics”, Chidambaram said: “I thought he is running as the third candidate in the US elections. If he had contested, he might have won also and turned America into a communist state.”
