New Delhi ,Feb. 28: Amid demands even by two key UPA allies — Trinamul Congress and DMK — to withdraw the hike in petrol and diesel prices, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee asserted on Sunday that there would be no rollback.
Mr Mukherjee, sticking to his guns, declared: “When we make some proposals, we make them for implementation, and not for a rollback.”
He indicated he was not unduly worried about the Trinamul-DMK demand to reverse the hikes. There was a “mechanism” through which the government dealt with such issues, he said, explaining that “we are (used to) dealing with our allies”. Such divergence of opinion, he noted, was nothing unusual in a coalition government, and “I am not worried over it.”
The finance minister said: “It is not that journalists are dealing with them... You go and (get) information from them... The DMK has been our partner for six years. And there have been occasions when (our) views have diverged.” With the entire Opposition and crucial allies opposed to the increase and fears that the Budget proposals might not pass Lok Sabha muster as is mandated under the Consitution, the minister warned that if this did indeed happen, the government would collapse. “If the Budget proposals don’t go through, then the government collapses,” he said. But Mr Mukherjee was quick to add: “It is not that simple. I am not looking at that... unless people are ready for the government to go and Parliament is dissolved.”
Both the Trinamul Congress and the DMK,who face elections next year, have dashed off missives to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, urging them to intervene and effect a rollback. Even the UPA’s supporting parties — SP, BSP and RJD — are against the fuel increase as they too will have to face elections very soon.
Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee has already said that while she has no “quarrel” with the UPA, she had to protest as the hike would hit the common man hard. DMK chief M. Karunanidhi has argued that the hike will fuel food inflation.
But as Mr Mukherjee explained, the issue was that if the government has to reduce borrowings and improve the fiscal deficit, he must have some resource mobilisation. Further, he said, the current high rate of inflation was not due to monetary expansion but due to supply bottlenecks. “Of four, five food items that contributed the maximum to the inflation package of food items, three of them — edible oil, pulses and sugar — are in short supply.
The answer, therefore, was in improving the supply management and removing bottlenecks. “All steps which are possible (to reduce food inflation) — including imports and cutting taxes — we have taken them,” Mr Mukherjee added.
On the Kirit Parikh report, which had recommended the decontrol of oil prices, and on fears that it might not be implemented in the current political environment, Mr Mukherjee said: “You have presumed too many things. Now there is resistance... Democracy functions in that way. There is divergence of views, different political parties will have their own views and we will have to see how best we can work together. So don’t reach the conclusion ... that the under-recoveries of oil marketing companies will keep on increasing, and no remedial measures will be taken. It’s not like that.”
The minister said he was confident that the reform processes which “we have begun in different sectors... will reach their logical conclusion”.
Pawan Bali
