The TDP and the Left consider each other natural allies. But the Telangana crisis has forced at least one Left party the CPI to train its guns at Chandrababu Naidu. As it is,the CPI differs with the CPM on the question of formation of Telangana. CPI Deputy General Secretary S Sudhakar Reddy launched a rare attack on Naidu in the latest edition of party mouthpiece New Age for dilly-dallying onTelangana. It promised to support a resolution for carving out a separate state but later backed out.
The credibility of Telugu Desam has gone down as they did not keep their promise and TDP and PRP both almost split into groups led by regional leaders fighting against each other, he says. Although he believes that Congress is to be blamed for the present mess,he observes that the TDP leadership has shown opportunism brazenly. The main message,however,is for the Centre to show more maturity to resolve the impasse.
Poor math
Although the Suresh Tendulkar committee has found that around 37 per cent of Indians live in poverty much higher than government figures the CPM feels that the UPA may consider revising its poverty estimates.
The reason poverty figures matter because they provide the numbers of people to whom government schemes aimed at addressing the worst forms of deprivation are to be targeted. Since targeting is in fashion,a reasonable estimate of those who deserve the benefit of these schemes is necessary. If the number of those targeted is kept small because of an inappropriate poverty incidence estimate,the social legitimacy the government seeks through these schemes would not be garnered…In practice,therefore,the numbers identified as BPL for implementing government sponsored schemes were much higher than those seen as below the poverty line as per the official poverty incidence figures, an article in CPM mouthpiece Peoples Democracy argues.
It says that a report prepared by a former Planning Commission member for the rural development ministry had argued that the proportion of BPL population should be closer to 50 per cent,opening doors to poverty incidence figures that would require budgetary outlays for targeted schemes that would trouble a fiscally conservative government. Thus,since it has managed to legitimise targeting,a method that delivers a middling poverty figure suits the government, it says noting that while there is a cosy convergence in the views of the Tendulkar committee and the government,the poor are not left any better.
Compiled by Manoj C.G
