Describing the Budget proposal of hiking foreign direct investment in telecom, insurance and civil aviation sectors as "uncalled for", the Left parties, providing crucial outside support to the United Progressive Alliance coalition, on Monday decided to oppose the proposals and ask the government to reconsider them.
At a meeting of the Left parties' Coordination Committee, top leaders of these parties decided to conduct a public campaign to mobilise support to "protect these sectors from further foreign control."
They also decided to approach the ruling UPA coalition to have a consultative mechanism for taking up issues relating to the Common Minimum Programme, Left sources said.
At the meeting, the parties however welcomed the focus of the Union Budget on issues relating to agriculture, education, repair of water bodies, provision of funds totalling Rs 14,194 crore (Rs 141.94 billion) to central public sector enterprises and an additional budgetary allocation of Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) for the central plan.
On the proposal to raise FDI in the three crucial sectors, the Left Coordination Committee felt that it would lead to foreign companies operating in the "sensitive telecom sectors which even has security implications." The enhanced FDI cap would harm the interests of GIC and LIC in the insurance sector, the left leaders felt.
The meeting was attended by Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat (all CPI-M), A B Bardhan, Pallab Sengupta (both CPI), Abani Roy and Manoj Bhattacharya (both RSP). Debabrata Biswas of Forward Bloc did not attend the meeting as he was not present in the capital.
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