UPA government policies aimed to help super rich: CPI-M

VIJAYAWADA - Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat Saturday slammed the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government saying its policies were designed to help only the super-rich.

“The Congress-led government’s policies are designed to help big businesses make super profits and to enable the transfer of resources to the rich and powerful,” Karat said inaugurating the party’s extended central committee meeting in Vijayawada.

He said the fiscal and taxation policies of the Congress-led government illustrate this fact starkly.

“The Congress-led UPA government boasts about the high growth rate achieved. The GDP growth rate is taken as the reliable index of progress and development for the people. But this is not true.

“What the neo-liberal policies have led to is the accumulation of capital, the enormous growth of the capital and assets in the hands of a narrow strata. The number of dollar billionaires in India has grown from 9 in 2004 to 49 this year. There has been growth, certainly - for the super-rich,” the CPI-M leader said.

Karat said ever rising prices of food and essential commodities burden the people.

“Millions of people go hungry everyday. The inequalities in income and wealth grow sharper, and India has the dubious distinction of having some of richest people in the world along with a substantial number of the poorest people in the world,” Karat said.

He said the four-day extended central committee meeting would take stock of the political situation in the country and chalk out a political line which can help the party tackle the current situation and meet the various challenges.