Guwahati, Mar 27: CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Com. Sitaram Yechury today urged upon the people to vote for a government that will ease the burden on the livelihood of the populace, which is declining on a daily basis.
He said the economic policies pursued by the current regime have to be pushed away and alternative policies put in place. Addressing a press conference here while on a visit to Assam to campaign for the party, Yechury said, “The 2014 polls is a watershed election because it will determine the future of the country. We are at crossroads on the direction that India should go.”
He said there was an urge among the people for relief from burden on their livelihood, which was declining, due to various factors like price rise and corruption. He said the main issues for CPI(M) would be to control price rise, reverse the economic slowdown and provide jobs for the youths.
“We need to reverse the economic policies of the Congress as well as the BJP. The economic policy since Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government has created two Indias – one for the shining rich Indians and the other poor,” he said, adding, “The government is enriching the rich and impoverishing the poor.”
Yechury maintained that these economic policies are generating new avenues for corruption, like in Private Public Partnership mode or awarding contracts, and said there was no difference between the Congress or the BJP in this regard.
He pointed that there was no shortage of resources in the country but these were being used for providing concessions to the rich. He said the government must stop concessions for the rich, collect the legitimate taxes and use that money to build infrastructure. “If there is investment in infrastructure, jobs will be created and livelihood will improve,” Yechury added.
He said the CPI(M) is working for an alternative that can come with alternative economic policies and is supremely secular. Yechury maintained that a Third Front could emerge in the post-counting scene and said any coalition before the elections may not stand together once the results are out.
He pointed that no pre-poll coalition has come to power since 1977 and all coalition governments, from the one led by HD Deve Gowda to VP Singh to Atal Behari Vajpayee to Dr Manmohan Singh, were formed after the results. “Mamata Banerjee was a Railway minister in the Vajpayee government and also the Manmohan Singh government. She has to decide on which side to stand,” he said. He said, “The USP of the CPI(M) is not anti-individual or anti-party, it is anti-policy. We have always lent support on the basis of policy and also insisted on a Common Minimum Programme.”
Yechury maintained that the achievements claimed by the Congress in UPA I were actually moves pushed by the CPI(M), from the RTI to Right to Education to Food Security Bill to land acquisition laws.
Yechury further said that his party will support any legislation, if needed, for protection of rights and identity of people of North East in other parts of the country. He said the CPI(M) had raised the issue of treatment of NE people in other parts of the country in the Parliament.
Yechury had asked the Centre to pursue, if needed, any legislation for ensuring equal status for NE people across the country and the CPI(M) had committed support to such a law without any qualification.
He said that the CPI(M) has been consistently taking up the cause of development of NE at the Central government level. “It was because of the CPI(M)’s insistence that the Bogibeel bridge over the Brahmaputra was sanctioned in 1996, but it is yet to be completed,” he said.
Yechury said the CPI(M) had insisted for special development programmes for the region, which ultimately culminated in the formation of the Department of North Easter Region in the Centre and allocation of 10 per cent budget money to NE from every ministry. Urging the voters of Assam especially to support the most eligible candidates, he said, “The people of Assam have an important role to galvanize NE sentiment all over India. Assam is the leading state of NE and it can show the road to the other states.”
Seeking people’s support in the three constituencies in Assam where the CPI(M) has fielded its official nominees, Yechury urged the people to vote for the most capable and committed candidates in the other constituencies. He added that the state unit will anaylse the candidates in each constituency and guide the CPI(M) voters to cast their mandate.
He also accused BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi of seeking to consolidate Hindu vote-bank by choosing to contest from Varanasi in the Lok Sabha election. He also dared Mr Modi to contest from anywhere in the country, instead of confining to a ‘safe seat’, if the BJP was so confident of the ‘Modi wave’.
Referring to the ‘Modi wave’ blowing in the country as claimed by the BJP, the CPI(M) polit bureau member said, “If such a wave was there, he should have fought from anywhere.” Sitaram Yechury also dismissed the ‘Modi wave’ as a media creation and questioned the amount of infighting in the BJP for seats if such a pro-Modi wave was indeed there. He maintained that the people do not want politics of hatred or religion but wanted peace and harmony.
He pointed out that the BJP has fielded candidates tainted in the Muzzafarnagar communal riots and people convicted by lower courts continuing as ministers in Gujarat adding that the Congress was not any better. “For every (Ashok) Chavan in Congress, there is a Yeddyurappa in BJP,” Sitaram Yechury added.