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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Wave pullout card, enjoy local tax

-The Telegraph

 

Mamata Banerjee today sprayed a cocktail of petrol price and other grievances on the Centre, warning that the Trinamul Congress could pull out of the UPA government if it “did not think about the masses” and listen to her party.

Oil firms said they had little option but to roll back the price increase if the Centre issued such a directive. However, till late this evening, the Prime Minister appeared to be standing by the decision not to interfere with the pricing of the decontrolled fuel.

That leaves the Centre with the option of a tax cut, unless the Prime Minister changes his stand. The judiciary also entered the picture with a Kerala court asking Indian Oil and Reliance to submit their balance sheets — documents already available in the public domain — in three weeks for perusal. ( )

Trinamul MPs set the ball rolling by convening in Calcutta for an emergency meeting of the party’s parliamentary committee, which followed the petrol price hike announced by oil firms last night.

Briefed by the MPs later at Writers’ Buildings, Mamata said: “Our MPs and central ministers are not willing to continue as allies of the government. What is the point of staying in the government if people are burdened? For one cabinet post, we can’t remain in the ministry. Somebody has to bell the cat.”

But Mamata, whose party is the largest ally of the Congress at the Centre, said she had asked the MPs to “wait for a few days”. “They have given to me in writing their desire to pull out of the government. But I have amended what they have said,” she said.

“Without our support, the government will collapse. I don’t want that to happen when the Prime Minister is away from the country. That will give the entire country a bad name. I have told them to first meet the Prime Minister when he returns, may be meet him on November 8 or 9, whenever he has the time. Then they should tell him that this burden on the people can’t be accepted and also about their decision.”

Mamata said that all her ministers, MPs and senior state minister Partha Chatterjee would attend the meeting and convey their feelings.

But Mamata was quick to add: “Before going ahead with such a serious decision, we must talk first. We fought elections as partners and would want to stay together for the full term. But the Centre also has to ensure that the allies remain with it, their views are heard. The Centre must also listen to us.”

Mamata said she would like to congratulate her MPs and ministers for the “bold decision” they had taken.

Mamata’s comments suggest that the compulsions of governance, the perceived unpopularity of the Congress, her eagerness to blunt the CPM’s price card and future calculations are driving her to adopt a tough stand. ( )

Her grievance at not being consulted before the hike and “smaller matters” like Trinamul still going without an office at Parliament was laid bare in the interaction she had with the media. Pointing to railway minister Dinesh Trivedi, Mamata said he was not allowed to speak at cabinet meetings.

While the Trinamul MPs were brainstorming, Mamata held a meeting with Union commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma who called on her at Writers’ in the afternoon. “I told him that decisions that have an impact on the country should not be taken when the Prime Minister is abroad. I have requested him to talk to the PM,” she said.

In Delhi, oil companies threw up their hands. “We do not plan to affect a roll back of prices but if we get a directive (to roll back prices), we will have to implement that,” IOC chairperson R.S. Butola, who was accompanied by BPCL chairperson R.K. Singh, told reporters. Butola said that even after the latest increase, the oil firm was losing Rs 24 crore a day on petrol.

However, if the Centre does order the oil companies to roll back the prices, it will go against the policy of petrol decontrol — a decision taken when Mamata was part of the Union cabinet — and strike at the root of the UPA’s stand so far that the government has nothing do with the decisions of the oil firms.

The storm caught up with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Cannes, where, ironically, he was discussing the fate of the Greek economic crisis with other G20 leaders. Not unlike the Bengal government, Greece is grappling with austerity measures.

The Prime Minister appeared to justify the decision to decontrol petrol prices. “Well, that is the general direction in which we should move. I think the move to decontrol the prices is a part of that process. But as I said, these are very sensitive areas and I have no hesitation in saying ultimately we must allow the markets to find their own level, except for those commodities which are semi-public goods,” Singh told a news conference in Cannes.

“So, the direction of change is clear. We must move in the direction of decontrolling more prices,” the Prime Minister said.