Poll promises thrown to the winds: CPI(M)

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JUNE 19. The CPI(M) State secretariat has strongly criticised the White Paper issued by the UDF Government and declared that it would organise the people to offer stiff resistance to the ``anti-people'' agenda that the Government proposes to pursue in the name of bailing the State out of the financial crisis.

In a statement here today, the CPI(M) secretariat said the White Paper suggested that the UDF is getting ready to throw all its election promises to the winds and betray the people. All that the White Paper does is to present an exaggerated version of the facts that normally figure in economic surveys published along with Budget documents. It is meant only as an anticipatory bail to escape the people's ire, the statement said.

The CPI(M) leadership said the State debt when the LDF left office in 1991 was over Rs. 5,000 crores. When the UDF left office in 1996, it had doubled. The White Paper is deliberately silent about this. The measures being put forward by the UDF Government to tide over the financial crisis are the same as the prescriptions followed by the Central Government. These include stoppage of all subsidies, freeze on recruitment and wages, holiday on welfare pensions, reduction of posts and privatisation of public sector units.

The actual reason for the current economic crisis is the economic policies being pursued by the Central Government. The liberalised import policy has resulted in a sharp fall in the prices of farm produce with a cascading effect on the economy. The `White Paper' is silent about how this affected the State Government's finances. Similarly, it is also silent about the initiatives of the LDF Government to reinvigorate the economy.

The State can now boast of being power-surplus only because of the investments made by the LDF Government in the power sector. Simultaneously, it had tried to activate the economy as a whole through the People's Plan Campaign. The White Paper has blacked out all this. The agenda being put forward by the UDF Government to tide over the crisis will place heavy additional burden on the people.

The agony of the people would be aggravated further with the hike in power tariff and bus fares. If power charges are enhanced, it would lead to the closure of several industrial units thereby aggravating the unemployment situation.

Any attempt to enforce a freeze on recruitment and wages would amount to throwing to the winds the promise made to the youth. The people would soon realise that the promises made by the UDF were hollow. If the Government goes ahead with its plans to hurt the masses, the CPI(M) would organise strong resistance against it, the statement warned.

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Section  : Southern States
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