The CPI(M) Polit Bureau has said that the Narendra Modi government has now virtually left the Indian people to fend for themselves in combating the Covid-19 pandemic. Talking to reporters here in Wednesday, the Party’s General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said the Centre should prepare a white paper on the economy as this financial year’s Budget holds no meaning now.

Yechury, explaining the decisions taken by a meeting of the Polit Bureau through video-conferencing on Tuesday, said the lockdown period should have been used either for augmenting the health facilities required to combat the pandemic or for providing relief to the people who have been agonised cruelly by not getting any time to prepare to meet the consequences of the lockdown.

“Having unilaterally declared (the lockdown), without consulting the State governments, the Central government is now shifting the burden of bearing the consequences of the lockdown, particularly the humongous humanitarian issue of crores of migrant workers with their families moving across the country, on to the shoulders of the States. Modi refuses to part with the thousands of crores of rupees he is collecting in a private trust fund under the PM’s name, to the States,” he said.

Yechury said the financial packages announced by the Centre are the blueprint for implementing the neo-liberal economic reforms, creating new avenues for profit maximisation by foreign and domestic corporates, aggressively pursuing privatisation of all national assets, sale of public sector units and opening up all sectors of the economy for FDI (foreign direct investment).

The CPI(M) criticised the push for digital education in schools and colleges. “The Central and State governments should reschedule the academic sessions so that examinations can be conducted in the normal way and students do not suffer the loss of a year,” the CPI(M) said in a statement.

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