CPM threatens to vote out govt if it increases FDI in insurance

New Delhi, Nov 7 (UNI) Three months after its attempt to pull down the UPA government it had supported for four years, the CPI(M) today again threatened to vote it out if it brought the insurance bill in Parliament to increase foreign direct investment in the sector.

The Parliament is scheduled to meet from December 10.

The Union Cabinet had recently given its approval to raise the cap on foreign direct investment to 49 per cent from the existing 26 per cent for private sector insurance players in the country.

Lambasting the UPA government for wrong diagnosis of the financial crisis and its response, party's politburo member Sitaram Yechury suggested a slew of its own measures to combat the crisis to protect jobs, trade, industry and agriculture.

He urged the government to increase public expenditure, ''expand fiscal deficit (by scrapping) Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act'', extend National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme to urban areas, reduce fuel prices and forget about going for capital account convertibility.

Claiming that when even the western economies are thinking in terms of restructuring their capitalistic systems to tide over the global meltdown, the Indian government is still pursuing market economy.

Mocking at the government for relying only on one instrument of policy of reducing interest rate to overcome the crisis, the party reminded that the government can not achieve two goals of controlling inflation and sustain growth through such a single policy instrument.

Claiming that the government is still in the denial mode over the gravity of the crisis, the party deplored it for ignoring various stake holders in the economy such as the state governments, political parties, trade unions and farmers organisations.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has so far only met corporate honochos to discuss the crisis and seek their feedback to meet it.

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