The Hindu : Q & A : Sitaram Yechury

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Saturday, Apr 03, 2004

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National - Elections 2004

Q & A : Sitaram Yechury

'GDP growth has actually shrunk'

The CPI (M) politburo member, Sitaram Yechury, who visited the Miryalguda Assembly constituency in Andhra Pradesh recently to campaign for his party candidate, Julakanti Ranga Reddy, spoke to Aniket Alam about the coming elections. Excerpts:

How would you react to the recent opinion polls that have shown the NDA coming back to power?

These projections are suspect. NDTV-Indian Express has projected about 300 seats for the NDA based on a survey by AC Nielsen, which itself has gone on record to say that while the data used is its own the actual seat projections are not. The BJP and its allies coming back to power is crucially dependant on the results in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Given the present political situation in these States, the NDA allies cannot repeat their last performance and therefore the projections made in these opinion polls seem quite off the mark. Moreover, this is the wrong time to do election opinion surveys as alliances are still to be stitched up in many places and many candidate names have not been announced. These two factors have a strong bearing on voting trends.

How successful have been your efforts to forge an anti-NDA alliance? In the crucial State of Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party has refused any alliance.

[Samajwadi Party president] Mulayam Singh's decision to go it alone in U.P. is very unfortunate. The SP remains the major secular force in U.P. and we hope that the multi-cornered fights would not end up benefiting the BJP. In most other States such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka we have either already managed to get a viable alternative to the BJP and its allies or are close to clinching it. I want to make another point clear. We have no alliance with the Congress, but only seat adjustments to minimise the division of the secular votes. Our differences with the Congress, especially with regard to economic policies, are well known and where we can provide a realistic alternative to both the BJP and the Congress we are doing so.

Your campaign will be focussed on the anti-communal plank?

Our campaign would cover the entire gamut of issues regarding communalism and the dangers to India's future. The BJP, despite all its protestations regarding bijli, sadak, pani [electricity, roads, water], is trying to win the elections by consolidating the communal vote. The central purpose of L.K. Advani's `rath yatra' has been to try and bring the Ayodhya issue back to the spotlight. Also remember that the VHP's work among youth and tribals distributing trishuls and on reconversion are all meant to consolidate the communal vote in these elections in favour of the BJP.

Even normalisation of relations with Pakistan have been given communal overtones by this Government. But our election campaign would equally focus on economic issues. The BJP-led NDA Government needs to be defeated for its disastrous economic policies alone.

Would you not agree that despite your criticisms, India has made rapid progress in infrastructure, telecom, IT and other sectors? Even our growth rate has gone up.

These are spurious claims and whatever little has been achieved has not been due to the policies of the present Government, but despite them. The GDP growth it talks about is only for the three post-monsoon months of last year. GDP growth has actually shrunk during the NDA tenure from above six per cent a year to less than six per cent. Telecom, highways, IT are all ongoing programmes started much before this Government came to power and the present increase in growth rates is due to a good monsoon and a service sector pick-up due to a global recovery in tourism after the slump following 9/11. All these are factors external to the Vajpayee Government's policies, so how can they claim credit?

But would not a Congress-led Government follow these same economic policies?

We are clear that we will support the formation of a secular Government. But our support will also depend on policies which the Government adopts and we will definitely put all the pressure on it to adopt pro-people policies.

Will you join the Government?

[laughs] We will also consider joining the Government after the election results are over. It depends on our strength and on the other political correlation at that time.

Do you think Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin issue would become an obstacle in forming a Government?

We saw its disruptive potential in 1999. But many of those who opposed her [Sonia Gandhi] on this issue have since rescinded from that position. Who will be the Prime Minister will be decided by the elected MPs after the results are out. It is not an issue now.

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