The Hindu Business Line : Testing times for ruling coalition

Left parties which support the UPA coalition from outside embarrassed the Manmohan Singh government on Tuesday by staging a walkout in both Houses of Parliament on the price rise issue, much to the delight of the principal Opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Strengthening PDS

During zero hour in the Lok Sabha, the CPI-M leader, Mr Roopchand Pal, criticised the UPA Government for not strengthening the public distribution system sufficiently. He said that in both the Left-ruled States, Kerala and West Bengal, there has been a substantial reduction in the supply of rice and wheat respectively.

Budget under attack

Next, the CPI leader, Mr Gurudas Dasgupta, made a scathing attack on the Budget which, he said, was responsible for “all round increase in the price of essential commodities”. He said the price rise today was not only unabated but remains unbearable.

He said the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidamabram, has completely failed to control the price rise despite promising fiscal measures to rein in prices.

Double bind

Taking a dig at the Manmohan Singh government’s neo-liberalism, Mr Dasgupta said “Budget and economic reforms are responsible for the speculative economy showing its teeth”.

He said that the common man is in a double bind because, on the one hand, there is price rise and, on the other, there is a total depletion in the public distribution system.

RJD members too remonstrated against the attack on workers from the Hindi-speaking belt in places such as Assam and Maharashtra.

Price rise

In protest against the price rise, the entire Left trooped out of the House to the embarrassment of the members from the treasury benches.

In the Rajya Sabha, the CPI-M leader, Mr Sitaram Yechury, said that because of “wrong” diagnosis and prescriptions in the Budget, the surgery may be successful but the patient is dying.

He said the resurgence of inflation after some respite was because of speculation in forward and futures trading and sought the Government to ban such trading in 24 commodities to hold the price line and prevent it from fluctuating wildly.

Some of the BJP members in the House wanted to know why the Left party members are protesting instead of withdrawing support to the Government.

For long-time observers of democracy, these are testing times for the ruling coalition, what with growing disenchantment even among the allies, especially on issues such as the nuclear deal.