Date:24/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/24/stories/2008032459601200.htm
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CPI(M) hits back at Chidambaram

His “neo-liberal” economic agenda “has intensified inequalities”

New Delhi: Stung by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s veiled criticism of the Left parties attack on UPA government’s economic policies, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Sunday hit back saying his “neo-liberal” economic agenda “has intensified inequalities.”

“The Finance Minister should work more closely on the lines of the Common Minimum Programme than... his own economic agenda,” CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat told news channel Times Now.

Mr. Chidambaram had said in Madurai on Saturday that “some 60 members of Parliament” criticised everything being done by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and him to improve the economy and argued that those who claim that growth only helped the rich are the “worst enemies of the poor.”

Pattern of growth

“The pattern of growth in the neo-liberal framework promoted by Mr. Chidambaram and some of his colleagues has clearly intensified inequalities in India,” Ms. Karat, who is also a Rajya Sabha member alleged.

Echoing the same sentiments, senior party Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said that growth must accrue to the vast majority of India’s population. — PTI

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