Kolhapur: Criticising the Manmohan Singh
government, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat on Tuesday blamed it for price rise and growing unemployment.
"The prices of essential commodities are shooting up,
industries are closing down and and 20 lakh people have been
rendered jobless in the recent months because of the faulty
economic policies of the Congress-led government at the
Centre," he told a press conference.
Karat, who was here to campaign for the October 13
Maharashtra Assembly elections, said the prices of essential
commodities had shot up substantially over the past four
months, directly affecting the life of the common man.
Farmers were committing suicide because the government
had failed to fetch them remunerative returns for their
produce, he said, adding the farming community was unable even
to recover the production cost.
Demanding a ban on future trading of commodities,
Karat sought adoption of a government policy strictly
regulating prices of essential commodities, strengthening of
the public distribution system and rationalising tax on
petroleum products.
He deplored the move to allow foreign educational
institutions to start campuses in the country, saying it would
only help the rich.
Karat said the ten-year-old Congress-NCP government in
Maharashtra has failed in solving the problems of the common
people.
Stating that the government could not escape the blame
for suicides by debt-ridden farmers, particularly in the
Vidharbha region, the CPI-M leader said the public
distribution system has collapsed, hitting those living Below
Poverty Line (BPL) the hardest.
He said the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance, the main
opposition in the state, was not in a position to present
itself as a viable alternative to the Congress-led state
government.
The Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF), of which
CPI-M is a constituent, was trying to emerge as the best
alternative to the present dispensation and was getting a good
response from the electorate, he claimed.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, October 06, 2009, 21:52