PALAKKAD, Jan 4: A Key issue that has emerged in the 16th State conference of the CPM, concluding here tomorrow, is the need for a clearly demarcated economic agenda on the part of the Left parties, as the party feels it has failed to wrest initiative on this crucial point.Party delegates and senior leaders have been harping on this point repeatedly in their debates and talks, inside and outside the party forums in the past three days here, indicating the high priority the CPM gives to an independent economic agenda.
Party general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet and key politburo member Prakash Karat, both keenly monitoring the proceedings here, have stressed the importance of the Left presenting a separate manifesto on economic matters in the coming elections, to distinguish the Left position from the Right variety spearheaded by Chidambaram and others.
Prakash Karat told The Indian Express today the Left perceptions on economic matters would be more deeply reflected in the United Front
manifesto for the next polls, coming out in a few days.
The delegates too have -- mainly those from the trade union and service sectors -- pointed out the increasing negative impact of the liberalised economic policies on the lives of the common people and the necessity to project the independent Left positions in view of the coming polls.
Issues like the entry of the US multinational Enron to the State, against which the CITU has strong reservations, the decline of local industries and the comparative failure of the LDF Government in injecting fresh lifeblood into the productive sectors and the public sector units in the State are matters which have received wide attention in the debates.
The central leadership has responded well to the grave concerns of the party rank and file, and they seem to have accepted the criticism that the Left could not have a consistently leading role in deciding economic matters.
As pointed out in these debates here, while a minor party like the TMC could wrest the key
portfolio of Finance and dictate terms with the most powerful group in the UF led by the CPM, the message being sent out to the public at large is negative.
As Surjeet said in his inaugural address, the CPM could decisively interfere in the course of political events with its clout in the ruling setup. But this decisiveness has not been widely seen in economic matters.
The general secretary partly endorsed this criticism when he admitted that they had to compromise on these matters to a certain extent. This is a united front and the common minimum programme was drawn up after the polls, that too, in a hurry. There were many points which the party could not generally accept in this programme, but these compromises were necessary to form the Government.Surjeet said the Left had been able to effectively intervene in many of the key economic issues. One of the instances he cited was how the Left wrested a 40 per cent increase in the Central Government employees salaries.
He said there were other cases too,
like the tough posture the Left had adopted in matters like telecom privatisation and petroleum prices. There was no compromise on issues of grave concern to the working classes, he declared.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
