On the eve of their breakfast meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Left leaders stepped up their attack on the Government, opposing plans on PSU disinvestment and questioning key foreign policy issues like relations with Israel and Myanmar. Meeting this evening at the CPM headquarters in A K Gopalan Bhavan — it was attended among others by CPM’s Harkishen Singh Surjeet and CPI’s A B Bardhan — Left leaders said that the Government had no right to decide on offloading PSU shares when a Board for Reconstruction of Public Enterprises was about to be formed. Left leaders said they were aware of the Government move to offload shares in 35 PSUs, including some profitable navratnas. They mentioned power sector companies like BHEL, Power Grid Corporation and Power Finance Corporation. This, they said, amounted to ‘‘privatisation through the backdoor.’’ While Left leaders have been opposing disinvestment, claiming workers are against this process, they have been proved wrong by employees of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). The employees themselves have just put in Rs 373 crore in the initial public offering (IPO) of NTPC. The meeting today saw the Left opening another front: foreign policy. Their disagreement with policy issues led to new demands: the UPA government should review ‘‘strategic ties’’ with Israel, tell Yangon to restore democracy, show no interest in the US-sponsored missile defence programme and stop Election Commission from sending a team to train poll staff in Iraq. In fact, on poll staff for Iraq, they even had a suggestion for the Prime Minister: ‘‘Let the Iraqis come here, our people will not go there. We can train them here.’’ A statement was also issued, saying ‘‘Left parties would like the UPA government to clarify whether any commitments have been made towards joining the US-sponsored missile defence programme. Similarly, the government should explain what is its response to the Proliferation Security Initiative which the US wants India to join.’’ Finance also came up at the meeting with leaders deciding that there would be a point-by-point rebuttal of Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s note on the need to enhance FDI in the Telecom sector. At the media briefing after the meeting, CPM politburo member Prakash Karat said that the Telecom rebuttal would be prepared shortly for the next UPA-Left coordination meeting. He said there were a ‘‘large number of inaccuracies in the note’’ handed over to them by Chidambaram.
