Slow down reforms, Left mounts pressure on govt

Since initiation of reforms no PM has been re-elected, Singh warned

The Left parties are beginning to mount pressure on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to slow down economic reform measures likely to be announced in the Budget for 2005-06.

Left leaders are expressing their displeasure at the manner and pace of reform measures more candidly then ever before. This is reflected in the language of criticism used by the Left against the UPA leadership.

In an article in the CPI(M) mouth piece, People's Democracy, senior party leader Sitaram Yechury has linked the anti-incumbency factor in Indian politics to the process of economic liberalisation citing the examples of former Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka chief ministers, Chandrababu Naidu and SM Krishna, respectively, who lost elections in their states last year.

Referring to reports about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh claiming that the impressive performance of the economy had silenced the critics of liberalisation, Yechury warned the Prime Minister that, "Far from silencing its critics, since the initiation of the liberalisation policies, no incumbent Prime Minister in India, from PV Narasimha Rao downwards, has ever been elected."

After CPI General Secretary AB Bardhan's unsparing remarks about the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, in Nalagonda last week, this is the second direct mention of the Prime Minister by the Left in their criticism of the government.

Though the Left has attacked Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia earlier, the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister have not come in for public criticism before Bardhan delivered his speech.

The hardening of the Left's position on the economic reform policy of the UPA government can be linked to two immediate factors.

The first factor has been the government's bull-dozing of Left objections on raising the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in the telecom sector from 49 per cent to 74 per cent. This decision was announced by the government on the same day as the decision to raise the Employment Provident Fund (EPF) interest rate to 9.5 per cent.

The Left has come in for considerable criticism for having given up their opposition on the FDI issue as trade off getting the EPF interest rate hiked. This has put the Left on the defensive while dealing with the government.

The other factor is the West Bengal Assembly elections, scheduled for early 2006. The pro-reform announcements in the Budget this year will have a direct bearing, what the Left chooses to oppose and how far they are able to have their demands met.

As a result, Yechury, while talking of liberalisation as how it had only benefited the rich, made it point to come out openly against Manmohan Singh in the 15th year of the liberalisation process in India.

He has talked of the need for "a significantly higher index of distributive justice" through an increased tax-gross domestic product ratio.

CPI (M) leader Prakash Karat also said the party would not take any responsibility to save the Singh government if it did not stick to the national common minimum programme.

Karat was addressing party workers at a three-day conference of the CPI-M's Tripura unit last night.