Unholy alliance, again

“During any election in West Bengal, irrespective of public political posturing, at the ground level, there were always attempts for a ‘mahajot’ — an understanding between the Congress, Trinamool Congress and the BJP — to unitedly take on the Left Front at the hustings. On this occasion, this grand alliance is being conceived on a much larger scale,” it says.

According to the editorial, this “reactionary combination” also includes some Muslim fundamentalist organisations alongwith the Maoists and foreign-funded NGOs. This combination was ably assisted by sections of the ‘corporate media’ during the Nandigram disturbances, it says.

The editorial says it is not surprising that the foreign-funded NGOs that were in the forefront in decrying violence at Nandigram are maintaining a silence when such murderous attacks are taking place against CPM cadres.

Prime Minister, sir

PD has given a detailed rejoinder to the PMO’s statement, issued immediately after the Left leaders had met the PM to submit a memorandum on price rise. The prime minister, in that statement, had urged “political parties to eschew the temptation of politicising the misery of the people”.

According to the rejoinder, global inflation, particularly the increase in food prices, is primarily an outcome of the ‘neo-liberal’ policies underlying globalisation. “The UPA Government continues to repose faith in neo-liberal policies and globalisation — the root causes behind the global food crisis. There can be no solution to the Inflation problem unless these policies are reversed, both domestically and globally,” it says.

Reacting to the PM’s appeal against ‘politicising people’s misery’, the article states that this is a very strange argument, since in a democracy political parties are expected to raise precisely those issues, like inflation and price rise, which cause hardship and misery for the people. “The argument that raising the issue of price rise by political parties amounts to ‘creating an environment of scarcity’ which encourages speculation and hoarding is totally fallacious. An environment of scarcity is created only when demand exceeds production and supply. Thus if anybody is to be blamed for the environment of scarcity, it is the government which has failed to meet agricultural production as well as procurement targets over the past two years,” it says.

On the PM’s claim that the UPA government has taken several steps in the past four years to increase agricultural production, the article states that the “steps taken by the UPA government to revive agriculture so far have been half-hearted and fall far short of what is required. The agricultural growth rate fell from 3.8 per cent in 2006-07 to 2.6 per cent in 2007-08,” it says.

And on the PM’s assertion that the government will take steps to strengthen the Public Distribution System and food procurement system in the country, the article states that PDS has been weakened, first by replacing the universal PDS by a Targeted PDS in 1997 and then by cutting back on foodgrain allocations to the states. “This has been done to cut down on food subsidies on the one hand and to favour foreign and domestic Corporates involved in agri-business initiatives and organised retail trade on the other,” it says.