The CPI(M) on Thursday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intention of undertaking major economic reform measures in the near future will “spell doom” for the people. Noting that Dr Singh during a media interaction on Wednesday had given “an indication that major economic reforms are round the corner”, senior party leader
Sitaram Yechury said this meant that the reforms of financial liberalisation, which the Left parties had prevented during UPA-I, were in the pipeline. Mr Yechury also said that Dr Singh had “failed” to give any confidence or assurance to the people on issues of corruption and price rise and his government was “gripped by a sense of drift”. In an editorial in the forthcoming issue of CPI(M) organ People’s Democracy, Mr Yechury said that measures like raising FDI cap in the insurance sector, banking reforms for further privatisation, full convertibility of the rupee and the privatisation of pension funds could be undertaken by the government.
“Thus, the strength of the Indian economy that helped us in resisting the disastrous impact of the global recession will now be weakened. This will spell doom to crores of Indian people while providing larger access to super profits to foreign and domestic capital,” Mr Yechury said.
Maintaining that the PM had made “repeated references” about the “coalition dharma”, Mr Yechury said, “by implication, this conveys that in order to keep the government in office, mega corruption at high levels must be tolerated. This is simply unacceptable to India and its people”.
Maintaining that Dr Singh “refused” to give any assurance on prohibiting speculative trading in essential items or universalising public distribution system, Dr Yechury said “neither of these are connected with budgetary exercise. Yet, the Prime Minister chose not to make any reference to these issues”.