Left wants govt to spell out Chinese 'threat'

Turning the heat on the UPA regime for rejecting the bids of the Chinese companies on grounds of security, the Left parties have decided to seek an explanation from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The government has to clarify if its concerns are "country specific" or "security specific," a senior Left leader told Business Standard today. He said there was no uniformity in the norms to assess threat perceptions.

Hutchisson Port Holdings (HPH) was denied security clearance for port projects in Mumbai and Chennai but the government had no objection to Hutchisson's strong presence in the telecom sector, he added.

They cited Shipping Secretary AK Mohapatra's statement in the media two days ago that denial of security clearance to HPH had nothing to do with its connection with China.

In a reply to CPI(M) MP Tapan Sen on August 25, the Ministry of Civil Aviation had said that the tender of M/s CIMC for passenger boarding bridges had been excluded/rejected "due to security reasons as advised by Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs."

"There is confusion all around. If it is not China, what are the other reasons? The government must spell out. The Ministry of Home Affairs withheld security clearance to Jet Airways for three years due to allegations of dubious investments in the company and alleged underworld connections of its chairman. The ministry gave it a clean chit recently even though the US was yet to give it permission for flying to the US," CPI(M) leader and former MP Dipankar Mukherjee said.

"This is a serious matter. How do you decide that a Chinese company is a security threat?" CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan said.

The left leaders said that their note submitted to the UPA-Left coordination committee meeting last January had spelt out their opposition to the privatisation route for modernisation of airports due to security and strategic reasons.

"Mumbai and Delhi airports have been handed over to private companies. How much do you know about their sources of investment? What if a Chinese company buys shares in these companies?" Mukherjee said.