CPI(M) Central Committee Member and Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac on Sunday said public sector units were being handed over to private owners in a systematic way and cited the example of Air India.
Speaking at a seminar on Communalism and the Challenges here, he said Air India would be soon sold for a pittance. “Banks, owing to political pressure, are lending to private entrepreneurs who are defaulters, thus paving the way for an increase in non-performing assets. In the name of recapitalisation, these banks are handed over to corporates,” he alleged. Delving on the GST, he said the new tax policy would help the big players while the small entrepreneurs and general public would suffer. “The benefits the big players are getting are not passed on to the general public.”
He said the economic reforms were being implemented by mesmerising the population with populist slogans and communal slogans were added to divert the serious issues.
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On the BJP’s tryst with Kerala, Mr. Isaac said the party was upset that it couldn’t enter the State. “The statement by BJP President Amit Shah that he would visit Kerala every month shows its frustration.”
He said the BJP was playing the caste card by surreptitiously reviving caste organisations to break the secular unity. “It is luring them [the caste units] by narrating success stories of the caste politics in the Northern States.”
Mr. Isaac said under the federal set-up the State governments were forced to function as per the policies of the Central government. “Under Modi rule, the threat of fascism was increasing and neo-liberal policies were being implemented on the communal platform.”
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Dangerous signal
The Kerala Minister said the BJP had majority in the Lok Sabha and with the recent triumphs in the State elections it was moving towards majority in the Rajya Sabha as well which was a dangerous signal. “It [the BJP] is stealthily capturing the education, health, media and also judiciary in the country.”
He said the CPI(M) had tried various political alignments in the past two decades and time had come to work hard to regain the lost ground so that it could put forward an alternative. “It is a difficult mission because earlier the tactics were simple but in the present political scenarios the task is difficult.”