2G money could have funded right to education: Sitaram Yechury

NEW DELHI: The Opposition kept up its attack on the government during the second day of the debate on President Pratibha Patil's address to Parliament. The charge was led by CPM MP Sitaram Yechury in the Rajya Sabha while in the Lok Sabha the opposition attack was led by JD(U) MP Sharad Yadav and CPM's Basudeb Acharia.

The resumed debate was dominated by the government's inability to handle runaway prices and the various scams that have come to the fore and the government's approach to black money.

"There is no one area of deficit, but there is nothing to complain about deficits because you have deficit of everything as far as this government is concerned," Yechury said. The CPM leader blamed the government for failing to collect money from defaulting companies in the 2G spectrum scam. He suggested that the money could have been used for funding welfare schemes of the people. "This money, being described as notional loss, could have been adequate to finance 35 kg subsidised grain for over 80% of the total households. Alternatively, this could have funded schemes like right to education and healthcare for all," Yechury said. He rejected the argument that spectrum was allocated at lower prices to keep mobile calls cheap.


Yechury reminded the House, that even as he spoke lakhs of workers were out on the streets of Delhi "beseeching Parliament to take remedial measures and to pressure the executive and the government to redress some of their grievances."

Attacking the government for giving huge tax concessions to corporate and high-end tax payers, Yechury said, "living conditions of the people have abysmally deteriorated as multi-billion tax concessions (worth Rs 225,000 crore) have been given to corporates and high-end tax payers."

Responding to the attack, Congress MP Rajiv Shukla said the President's address did not make any effort to hide or downplay the issue of corruption. "Normally, issues that could cause discomfort to the government are dealt with towards the end. But the second paragraph of the address clearly lays out the government's concern over corruption." He said the government was clear that it would take all action that it could and punish the guilty. "Action will be taken on all scams and wrongdoing, besides which the government is taking steps to limit the possibility of such events in the future as well," Shukla said.

Shukla said it was necessary to not convey the impression to the world that all of India was corrupt as that would adversely impact the country's global standing. Shukla's speech was interrupted at various points, as he tried to launch a counter attack. He said the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 2G spectrum scam should probe allocation of spectrum since 1998 and called for probes into the disinvestment policies of the NDA government.

In the Lok Sabha, JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav took on the government by stressing that cases of corruption have increased during UPA-II. He said, "corruption is like opium addiction...It is not going away."

The debate was marked by frequent clashes as members of the ruling and opposition parties accused each other of corruption and inaction to check the menace.