Left wants reply to their note at UPA-Left meet

New Delhi, Jul 21: Left parties today sought a ''concrete response'' from the UPA Government to their critical note on its two-year performance, saying the issues raised in the nine-page document would dominate the proceedings of the crucial UPA-Left Coordination panel meet tomorrow.

The rise in prices of essential commodities, internal security, terrorist incidents in Mumbai and Srinagar and the agrarian crisis will also be taken up in big way at the meeting, the Left leaders told UNI on the eve of the meet to be attended by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, senior cabinet ministers, CPI(M) leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechuri, CPI's A B Bardhan and D Raja, Forward Bloc's Debabrata Biswas and RSP's Abani Roy among others.

The leaders of the CPI(M), CPI and Forward Bloc said the Left parties will also hold a joint meeting at CPI(M) headquarters before attending the Coordination Committee meet at Prime Minister's residence.

While CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat told UNI on phone from Thiruvananthapuram that the government would ''apprise us about what it had done in response to our note,'' the other left leaders said they believed that the Manmohan Singh government had prepared a response, which would be placed at the meet.

This is the first meeting of the top leadership of the UPA and the left parties after the latter submitted the nine-page note on resource mobilisation strategies for implementing what they termed ''people-oriented programmes.'' The note, submitted by the Left parties at the last UPA-Left meet on June 15 contained criticism of the Congress-led coalition on several counts, chiefly its ''disinvestment spree,'' new liberal economic policies, attempts to usher in flexible labour laws, failure to check the unabated spate of farmers' suicides and a 'pro-US' foreign policy. Dismissing the government's argument that major schemes in education, health care and rural employment would be hampered for want of resources if disinvestment was halted, it also suggested various measures for resource mobilisation including rationalisation of the tax structure.

The meet also assumes special significance in view of Mr Karat mounting an attack on the government and accusing the Planning Commission of having failed to reflect the CMP commitments on the agrarian crisis, burgeoning unemployment and food security in its Approach Paper for the 11th Plan.

Senior CPI(M) leader Nilotpal Basu said the left parties were expecting a concrete response from the Manmohan Singh government but declined to speculate on the likely outcome. ''That we do not know...

we have to wait.'' CPI National Secretary D Raja said the Left note was likely to dominate the proceedings, but said he was not aware of the official agenda. ''Left parties have submitted a nine page note detailing all our concerns, be it the economy, foreign policy and the disinvestment spree,'' he said, adding there would also be discussions on the immediate issues -- the Indo-US nuclear deal, internal security, price rise and crisis in agriculture.

Forward Bloc Secretary G Devrajan said the government was said to have prepared a note for the meeting. ''We expect a detailed discussion on that note,'' he said.

UNI

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