Home India Politics Bridge hiatus between ‘shining’ and ‘suffering’ India: CPI-M

Bridge hiatus between ‘shining’ and ‘suffering’ India: CPI-M

By IANS

New Delhi : The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Thursday urged the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition to do serious introspection on its performance and said popular pressure on the government should be strengthened to bridge the growing hiatus between the 'shining' and 'suffering' India.

Criticising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, which has just completed three years in rule, for its failure in various sectors, the CPI-M said: "The UPA will have to seriously introspect on this occasion."

"Popular pressure on the UPA government to implement the promises will have to be strengthened in the days to come if the growing hiatus between the 'shining' and the 'suffering'," an editorial in the party weekly "People's Democracy" said.

The former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government's 'India Shining' campaign had severely been criticised for its negligence of the rural sector.

Although appreciating certain positive measures initiated by the UPA government, the CPI-M said many promises in coalition's mutually agreed agenda of the government's Common Minimum Programme (CMP) in the vital areas were "yet to see the light."

"Even after crossing the halfway mark, the non-implementation of crucial CMP promises is, in itself, most disappointing.

"More disconcerting, however, is the relentless pursuit of the neo-liberal agenda of economic reforms," the editorial said.

The CPI-M, along with three other Left parties, supports Manmohan Singh's government from outside.

The article also alleged: "While the government ostensibly swears by the CMP, its other arms like the Planning Commission pursue the liberalisation agenda."

Patting itself, the CPI-M said the Left parties had been "pressurising the UPA to implement its CMP promises and opposing the anti-people measures."

In an apparent dig at Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, a former World Bank official, the editorial added: "The Left has also been engaged in combating this insidious pushing of the World Bank-dictated liberalisation agenda."

Meanwhile, communists-backed Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU) Thursday asked the prime minister to establish a mechanism to check the contractors employing contract labours and ensure stringent enforcement of the laws that protect such labourers.

In a letter to Manmohan Singh, CITU president M.K. Pandhe asked him to "institute a statutory board at centre as well as at state level backed by a focused enforcement oriented legislation for suo moto identification of contractors employing contract labour and for stringent enforcement of Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970."

Pandhe, also a CPI-M politburo member, pointed out that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report has recently highlighted the "weak enforcement" of the act because "of inadequate number of inspections, check inspections, re-inspections vis-à-vis the number of registered establishment and contractors."