Resolve Reliance row, CPI tells govt

Expressing concern over the "vitiating" corporate atmosphere because of the ongoing tussle between two brothers in one of the biggest industrial houses in the country, the CPI today sought the government's intervention on the plea that it was affecting foreign direct investment (FDI) flow, stock market and the investors.

Saying that the Reliance spat was affecting India's "corporate morality" in the eyes of the world, CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta advised the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to do whatever it could to resolve the issue.

He said the tussle between the two brothers""Anil Ambani and Mukesh Ambani""for the control of Reliance Industries Ltd was "vitiating the corporate culture of the country".

Referring indirectly to Mukesh Ambani's proximity with the Congress, the CPI leader said: "Both the brothers have their political patrons. One of them is meeting somebody in Uttar Pradesh, the other in Delhi. They have their eggs in different baskets."

However, the Left at this point seems willing to look the other way, if the Congress can play a decisive role in ending the power struggle in the Ambani family.

The CPI leader said he was not concerned with the Ambani's themselves but with the thousands of employees working for the group companies whose livelihoods were likely to be affected if the matter was not resolved quickly.

The CPI's new preoccupation with the FDI and the stock-market might seem like a U-turn since the Sensex-shattering days of the UPA government, when CPI leader AB Bardhan had said disinvestment "could be damned".

Addressing a press conference with parliamentary party leader PK Vasudevan Nair here, Dasgupta also reiterated his party's demand to the government to roll back increase in the prices of petrol and cooking gas suggesting that the loss of revenue should be recovered from "broad-based taxation including increasing tax on the rich".

He said the party was "distressed" at the way POTA was repealed without consulting the UPA partners, particularly the Left parties, even rejecting the suggestion of referring the Bill to a standing committee.

Asked why he was raising the issue through the press when there is a Left-UPA co-ordination committee, Dasgupta said whenever there was a coalition government, differences were bound to come but asserted that "this unity and front will continue."

"They cannot leave us, we cannot leave them. The compulsions of objective reality is that neither the Congress nor the Left parties could form a government on their own and they joined hands to defeat the fascist and communal forces," he said.

Asked if it meant the Left was compromising on its policies and principles, Dasgupta denied it and said it was because of the Left, several welfare measures were taken up by the Congress-led government at the Centre including 100-days of employment to at least one individual in a family.

Seeking better co-ordination and consultations among the UPA partners while Parliament was in session, Dasgupta also urged the government to expedite the implementation of its national common minimum programme and take a determined step to ameliorate the distress of the people""poverty and unemployment.