The Hindu : CPI(M) urges EC to stop sale of ONGC shares

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Sunday, Mar 07, 2004

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CPI(M) urges EC to stop sale of ONGC shares

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 6. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) today drew the attention of the Election Commission to the sale of Government equity in the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and urged it to invoke the Model Code of Conduct and stop "this illegal sale of India."

The politburo in a statement said such a sale by a caretaker Government without any accountability to Parliament and the people only compounded the "crime that is simply unacceptable."

Responding to reports that a U.S. investor, Warren Buffet, who heads an investment company called Berkshire Hathaway, was the main buyer of the ONGC shares through his nominees, it said Mr. Buffet had close links with the oil interests in California, and was part of the inner circle of the new California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose elevation to office was ensured through massive use of money-power that helped to "ease out" the duly-elected former Governor, before the completion of his term, through an "apparently" democratic referendum.

"Buffet and the coterie around the new California Governor also have close links with the "military-industrial complex" (to use President Eisenhower's term) and with right-wing and fascist elements," the politburo said in a statement.

It said, of late, the U.S. oil interests were trying to capture the world's oil resources. The occupation of Iraq, the incursions into Central Asia, the attempt to topple Hugo Chavez, and even the plan to redraw the geographical boundaries of Saudi Arabia were all part of this.

"It is sad that the Indian Government is voluntarily surrendering the fate of our country to these global sharks by giving them control over our own oil resources. It is even sadder that the Disinvestment Minister actually expresses glee over the `oversubscription' of the ONGC shares when this is just a fallout of the takeover of our oil resources by American oil-interests."

Reminding that control over Indian natural resources had been wrested after a bitter and prolonged struggle, it said, the real decolonisation of the Third World had occurred not with the handing over of formal political power to local politicians, but when it gained control over its own resources.

The argument that the proposed sale of ONGC equity does not represent handing over control is untenable, it said. When the sale is to a big foreign buyer, retaining control would be well nigh impossible.

And as for the elation over the "oversubscription," in the case of any exhaustible resource the notion of a "normal price" of the equity (any excess over which can be called "oversubscription") is absurd. The market can never express the true value of these resources, which must be socially-owned.

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