Cong, BJP economic policies identical, alleges CPM

No competitor for CPM in taking up issues, avers Narasing Rao

Visakhapatnam: “There is no difference in the economic policy of the previous Congress government and the present BJP-led NDA government at the Centre as the latter is also indulging in ‘anti-people’ and ‘anti-worker’ policies by trying to amend the labour laws and to dilute public sector undertakings by way of disinvestment,” Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretariat member Ch. Narasing Rao alleged.

Addressing the party cadres at the annual congress of CPM city unit on Sunday, Mr Narasing Rao said though the BJP government had promised to bring back black money by announcing a list of 640 ‘stalwarts’ within 100 days of coming to power, it failed to disclose the list even after the Supreme Court directives. “Immediately after coming to power, it has increased the rail charges and there was no speciality in its economic policy,” he said.

Stating that the Centre was also contemplating to amend the Labour Acts, including Industrial Disputes Act, Mr Narasing Rao said that if the Acts were amended, companies with less than 300 manpower could shut down their business any time. Moreover, workers would have to work for 12 hours instead of the present eight hours. Hence there was every need to thwart the attempts to amend the Acts, he said.

Nearly, 93 per cent of workers were functioning in various names like casual, temporary, ‘mazdoor’ and outsourced to avoid equal pay for equal work, the CPM leader said and asked the party leaders to take up the issues of such labour. “In the future, people will not get any subsidies on fuels or LPG as the BJP government is gradually cutting the benefits, which will badly affect the poorer sections,” he said.

The Central government is also planning to amend the Land Acquisition Act again, which was amended by the previous Congress government in 2013. As per the Act, lands could not be acquired unless it was agreed by 80 per cent of the farmers. The BJP government, he said, was now focusing on whether to change the previous norms to 50 per cent or to 40 per cent, which was undemocratic and exploitation of farmers.

About the Central government’s proposal of disinvesting in Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), he said all trade unions opposed the move. The Prime Minister’s foreign jaunts and his pet concept ‘Swachh Bharat’ were nothing but to mislead the public and the working class, he alleged.

On the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government in the State, Mr Narasing Rao said it was also planning to exploit farmers in the name of construction of new State capital by acquiring lands in the name of Land Pooling system, which was also a farce. It also failed in fulfilling its promises made ahead of the elections and no compensation was paid to the ‘Hudhud’ cyclone victims so far, he said. Claiming that the CPM had no competitor in the State in taking up agitations on behalf of the working class, he called upon the cadres to continue the agitations on burning issues of the working class, including unorganised sector. He asked the city unit leaders to refer to the previous work done so as to chalk out future plans to strengthen the party activities.