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CPI-M calls it an anniversary of the inept

Patronising corruption, looting the public sector, giving a free run to MNCs in the garb of 'Swadeshi' and implementing a communal agenda are the ''real achievements'' of the year-old BJP-led coalition, the Communist Party of India-Marxist said today.

Panning the March 19 celebrations of the first anniversary of the coalition, CPI-m politburo member and ideologue Sitaram Yechury said the pomp and show, wasting crores of rupees of precious national resources, showed that the ''ramshackle'' government's only achievement was that it had somehow managed to last one full year.

''But in that year there has not been a single area of public life that has not been gravely vitiated by their being in office,'' yechury said in a critique of the government.

Far from living up to its promise of providing a ''stable government'' under an ''able leadership'', the BJP had only led the country into ''unmitigated disaster,'' he added.

Marked by internal squabbles within the BJP and bickering between the allies, the coalition had reflected a gross collective inefficiency and pathetic lack of common-sense in dealing with day-to-day issues of governance, he added.

''The government beleaguered by the Samata-Mamata-Jayalalitha syndrome has earned notoriety for being India's most consistent rollback government,'' Yechury said.

The National Agenda for Governance had promised to rid the country of bhook (hunger), bhay (fear) and brashtachar (corruption), but on all these fronts the situation was much worse, he added.

Despite bombastic claims, neither the Lokpal Bill nor the Money Laundering Bill had seen the light of day. The same Jayalalitha, against whose corruption the BJP railed against in the past, is today indispensable for the government's survival.

''Corruption cases have been transferred, Enforcement Directorate chief sacked and judges retired in order to appease the AIADMK,'' Yechury said.

The NAG had declared that the government would the economy a ''strong Swadeshi thrust''. But that had proven to be an empty slogan, with the government systematically selling India's best assets to multinational corporations.

The insurance sector was being opened to the foreign sector and the patents regime in crucial areas like pharmaceuticals and agri-chemicals was loaded in favour of MNCs, though the BJP had expressed vociferous opposition to these measures earlier.

Apart from giving automatic clearance to 75 per cent foreign equity participation and 100 per cent to NRIs, the decision to make mergers and acquisitions easier in the current budget spelt disaster for Indian industry. Massive disinvestment was being planned of profit-making and productive public sector units.

Relentless price rise had seriously eroded the real earnings of the people. The administered prices of every single essential commodity ranging from wheat, rice, sugar, diesel, urea and cooking gas to railway freight and postal charges had been hiked.

The worsening law and order situation saw 38,000 murders being committed with BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Delhi leading the crime graph.

''The most pernicious impact of the government had been its relentless implementation of the RSS agenda seeking to convert India's secular democratic republican polity into a rabidly intolerant and autocratic Hindu Rashtra,'' Yechury said.

Describing as ''unprecedented'' the attack on Christian minorities, he said more than one hundred incidents of violence against Christians had been listed since the present government assumed office. The state had failed to do its duty in protecting the life, dignity and property of the victims, he added.

UNI

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