CPM split on pension bill / Dec 16, 2005 / The Telegraph
From Indiapensions
CPM split on pension bill
New Delhi: The CPM central committee remains split on the controversial Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority Bill, though its three-day-long deliberations will be over tomorrow.
"We are discussing the issue. The government is also discussing it at various levels. Let us wait for its outcome," said party politburo member Sitaram Yechury.
General secretary Prakash Karat has submitted a note to the Centre outlining an alternative proposal for the fund.
Karat proposed that the management of the fund be given to public sector entities like LIC - a suggestion that could remove a big hurdle in the way of the CPM accepting the bill. The bill now says the fund will be managed by a private agency.
But M.K. Pandhe, politburo member and president of Citu, the party's trade union wing, is sticking to his stand that the bill is "non-negotiable".
"Alternative proposals are not acceptable to us," Pandhe said.
"LIC will also invest in the share market. It is not acceptable to us," the Citu leader added.
The hiatus between the Citu lobby and Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and his colleagues in the central committee who are backing him on the bill remains as critical as before.
The CPM leadership, which wants to extend a helping hand to Bhattacharjee, has put the ball in the Centre's court. Yechury's remark indicated that the government will have to consider the amendments suggested by the Left if it wants to pass the bill in the winter session of Parliament which ends on December 23.
Even if the government accepts the CPM's suggestion, a question mark will remain over Citu's stand as Pandhe has ruled out amendments.
Bhattacharjee has managed to turn around a large section of the leadership in the CPM's decision-making body. But he still has to contend with opposition from within his party on his plans to push through reforms in Bengal.
Some CPM members today cast a cloud on Bhattacharjee's hopes to modernise Calcutta airport through public-private partnership as they opposed in the Lok Sabha the civil aviation ministry's policy to modernise Delhi and Mumbai airports.
