Nedumbasserry: Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury on Sunday saidthat the verdict of the elections to the United States' House of Representatives and the Senate has sent out a clear message that even the American people were not in a position to endorse the actions of President George Bush in Iraq.

Talking to reporters at the Kochi International Airport, he said that Mr. Bush had lost the elections, which he had virtually converted into a referendum on his policies in Iraq.

Asked about the future of the Indo-US nuclear deal in the backdrop of the election verdict, Mr. Yechury pointed out that the Democrats had announced their willingness to endorse the deal. ``The Left, in particular, the CPI (M), is very clear on the issue and had had made nine points regarding the deal. The Prime Minister had on the floor of the House assured [the members] that India will not compromise on any of these points," he said.

Regarding the ambiguity on the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), he said that the matter was to be taken up in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-Left Coordination Committee scheduled for Monday. Mr. Yechury said that the Left was for amendments to the SEZ rules in four areas.

First, in terms of acquisition of land for SEZs the priority must be non-agriculture land. If the acquisition of agriculture land became inevitable then, the priority must be single-crop land, he said. However, as a matter of contiguity if the acquisition of multiple-crop land became necessary, the question of compensation must be clearly worked out.

He discarded criticisms that the CPI (M) was adopting double standards on the issue of SEZs in West Bengal and in the rest of the country. He said that in Bengal the norm was to pay 152 per cent of the prevailing market rate in the event of land acquisition for SEZs, while in other places land was acquired at a meagre amount. The second concern was regarding the usage of land acquired for SEZs, he said. He pointed out the grant of tax concessions to SEZs as another area requiring amends. ``Today the tax concessions are too large and too much," he said. He said the idea that a builder could build on the SEZ land without paying any duties and not paying any taxes on the materials he uses for construction was strange. ``This will lead to the creation of real estate mafia," Mr. Yechury said.

Another issue was the application of labour laws in the SEZs. ``Because of our insistence they (Centre) agreed in the Parliament that the prevailing labour laws would be implemented in the SEZs. But because this is a State subject there is the problem that some States may choose not to intervene."

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