Ruling out any meeting with the UPA government, the Left parties said there was no question of holding discussion with the government over the issue of fuel price hike after the government repeatedly ignoring their suggestions of “how to curb the price hike of petroleum products.”
The CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat said Friday that the government had completely ignored their demands to restructure excise and custom duty regime on crude oil and petrol products. “There is no question of us accepting the hike in the prices of petroleum products,” he added.
His comments came after the government signalling that the hike in prices of petrol and diesel was the nearest possibility.
A day after completing four years of regime by the UPA government on May 22, the Left parties held a meeting attended by Prakash Karat of CPI-M, general secretary A B Bardhan and national secretary D Raja of CPI, Ambani Roy of Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas for reviewing the performance of the Congress-led UPA government. The Left leaders also discussed over a wide range of issues including price rise, hike in prices of Petro Products and nuclear deal.
“We are also aware of the rise in prices of petroleum products in international market. That's why we are suggesting the durable solution in this era of high international oil prices. If they lower the duties the oil companies will also stand to gain,” Karat said.
The CPI leader Bardhan said the UPA government had so far failed to control the spiralling prices of food grains, essential commodities of daily use and fuel. He reiterated the demands of restricting oil prices from further enhancement and for checking the prices of food grains, he demanded strengthening of the Public Distribution System (PDS), curbs on the procurement of food grains by private owners and traders, checking over black marketing and banning future trading in not less than 25 agricultural commodities.
Besides price rise, the Left parties also discussed over agrarian crisis, unemployment, and loss of livelihood. The Left leaders also said loan waiver policy by the government has not been successful in meeting the distress of a large section of farmers. And, now after SBI's refusing to give loan to farmers for purchasing machinery and tractors, the loan waiver policy started to showing its own weaknesses.
The Left however, denied to meet the Prime Minister on the issue of hike in petroleum products, and said “all knows our stand.”
Left on Nuclear deal
To a query about their stand on nuclear deal, the Left parties reiterating their stand on Indo-US nuclear deal said that they are not yet ready to allow the government to go ahead for operationalisation of the agreement. We have not yet completed discussion with the government on the IAEA safeguards and the discussion is still going on.
The next meeting of the UPA-Left committee on the nuclear deal is scheduled for May 28.
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