Sibal’s actions a smokescreen to let off guilty corporates: CPM

“Why is the minister not categorical about declaring that licences will be cancelled of all those companies that have adopted illegal means? Why is the minister stating that auction of the spectrum may not be the best way forward?

“In all this we are seeing the now familiar pattern – a smokescreen to see that the main culprits,that is corporates,are let off the hook,” Karat said in an article in the forthcoming issue of party organ ‘People’s Democracy’.

The real reason why the government does not want a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) is because “such an enquiry will show how the entire system has been manipulated by the nexus which gets policies formulated and implemented for their benefits”,he alleged.

“Not only the minister and the guilty officials but the corporates who suborned and bribed them should be brought to book and punished.”

Whether Dayanidhi Maran or A Raja are made the Telecom Minister “becomes an issue for rival corporates to intervene and influence. Even if no choice is made on this basis,the performance of the minister will be judged by how amenable he is to the interests of big business.

“One has only to recall how Manishankar Aiyer was replaced as the Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas by Murli Deora in the first term of the UPA government,” Karat said.

Karat claimed that the spate of scams in CWG,Adarsh housing and earlier in supplying of rice to African nations during the UPA rule showed that “the rot goes much deeper and is systemic” and blamed the “obstinate refusal” of the UPA government to constitute a JPC for the logjam in Parliament.

“It will be a mistake to view this spate of corruption as just a manifestation of the venality of certain politicians or of some corporate or the other…. This has been growing exponentially since the 1990s when liberalisation took off,” the CPI(M) leader said.

Describing the 2G spectrum allocation scam as the “biggest corruption scandal involving the government since independence”,he said while government policy was up for sale,entire institutions and state agencies are “suborned by big capital” due to liberalisation and deregulation.

“India is fast reaching the level of Thailand,Philippines and Indonesia — all countries which see the free play of MNCs and crony capitalism,” Karat said,listing out major scandals since the Narasimha Rao regime.