Left should introspect over support to UPA: CPI

New Delhi, Apr 26: Questioning the very rationale of the support to the UPA government, the CPI today made a strong case for introspection among the Left partners over the issue.

''The Congress owes an explanation to its allies, supporting parties and the nation as to why it failed to control price rise, indiscriminate land acquisition in the name of developing SEZs and breakdown of the Public Distribution System (PDS) among others,'' CPI Floor leader in the Lok Sabha Gurudas Dasgupta told mediapersons here.

Addressing a news conference on the first day of the resumed Budget Session of Parliament, Mr Dasgupta also cited the deepening agrarian crisis and the unabated farmers' suicides and said the party would launch a ''blistering attack'' on the ruling coalition during this half of the Session.

The CPI leader also came down heavily on the ruling coalition for what he termed ''shortage of funds'' for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, saying it had not set up any foolproof mechanism to oversee whether the funds earmarked for the flagship programme were being properly spent.

Mr Dasgupta, calling Finance Minister P Chidambaram ''Mr Failure'', said both the Consumer Price Index and the Wholesale Price Index and inflation which hovered around 6 per cent have proved that the government has failed in its ''avowed task of containing inflation''.

The senior leftist said Mr Chidambaram, who had the blessings of the Prime Minister, believed that only monetary methods and his claimed rate of could control the price rise, which is not true.

''The government has no political will to control the price rise,'' he alleged.

''I question the genuineness of the concern of the ruling coalition to control inlfation,'' said Mr Dasgupta, who was flanked by other Floor leaders -- C K Chandparan, Ajay Chakerverty and S Sudhakar Reddy.

On the series of electoral defeats to the Congress, since it came to power, the CPI leader said ''The Congress is out to score only self goals to pave way for the return of the BJP at the Centre.'' To a specific query if his party was ready to sit in the Opposition, the CPI leader asserted that the CPI could not take any ''unilateral decision''.

''It had to be a combined decision of all the supporting Left parties,'' he added.

To another question he said even though his party was raising the issue of the rationale of the Left support to the Manmohan Singh government but it refuses to be drawn into the controversy on why the ''big brother'' reportedly seemed more keen to continun the support.

UNI

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