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Thursday, May 11, 2006

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National

Left to go on the offensive

Special Correspondent

Issues such as agrarian crisis and displacement of tribal people to be raised

NEW DELHI: The Left parties on Wednesday decided to go on the offensive in Parliament by raising a host of issues ranging from agrarian crisis, displacement of tribal people, violation of labour laws and privatisation of airports among others.

Accusing the Manmohan Singh Government of "violating all principles of a multi-party government by not consulting allies and supporting parties on crucial policy issues," leaders of the Left parties said issues such as selling of residual shares of Bharat Aluminium Company; recent communal riots in Vadodara and promised Bills providing reservation for women in Parliament and legislatures and for the unorganised sector would be raised.

Persistence of crisis

Briefing presspersons after a meeting of four Left parties, Sitaram Yechury and Gurudas Dasgupta said they were concerned about the persistence of crisis in the agriculture sector. Mr. Yechury said the Common Minimum Programme had promised to address the issue through increasing public investment in the sector and making institutional credit available. But even after two years, farmers' suicides continued and the question of food security had cropped up with India deciding to import foodgrains.

On the issue of displacement of tribals, Mr. Yechury said the problem arose not just from building large dams, but also due to privatisation of mines. Under the 5th Schedule of the Constitution, the President's approval was necessary for changing the character of the land. No such approval was sought at present. In this context, Mr. Dasgupta and Mr. Yechury said there was a need to have a national mineral policy.

The parties also decided to raise the recent communal riots in Vadodara, growing incidence of female foeticide and "surreptitious abrogation" of labour laws in States such as Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab.

Besides Mr. Yechury and Mr. Dasgupta, those who attended the press conference included C.K. Chandrappan (Communist Party of India), Basudeb Acharia (Communist Party of India-Marxist), Abani Roy (Revolutionary Socialist Party) and Debabrata Biswas (All India Forward Bloc).

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