NEW DELHI : Upset at the Special Economic Zones policy, the Revolutionary Socialist Party will launch a "hard hitting campaign" against the UPA Government, which it supports from outside.

"Anti-people path"

At the end of a three-day central committee meeting here on Thursday, RSP general secretary K. Pankajakshan said that the Manmohan Singh Government had taken an "anti-people path" of purported industrial development through indiscriminate establishment of SEZs.

However, the issue of withdrawal of support to the Government did not figure during the discussions, party leaders said. On Wednesday, a Pankajakshan-led delegation conveyed to Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat and CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan the party's stand on the SEZ and issues relating to West Bengal.

Mr. Karat told the delegation that an effort was to seek a change in the SEZ Act passed by Parliament in 2005.

On Thursday, the RSP said that the Centre had accorded permission for 432 SEZs throughout the country in "tune with the doctrine of neoliberal capitalist globalisation." These SEZs would be established mostly on agricultural land but poor farmers would not be properly rehabilitated. In addition, both the Centre and the States would lose revenue.

The RSP would hold a national convention against the SEZs here on March 19.

The party charged the UPA Government with making "a conspiratorial move'' to somehow install the Pension Fund Regulatory Authority and vowed to oppose it.

The RSP demanded that the Provident Fund interest rate be raised to 9.5 per cent, and expressed anguish at increasing foreign direct investment in the retail sector.

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