If we could stop FDI in retail, why can't Trinamool: CPI(M)

NEW DELHI: With UPA constituents opposing the government decision to open up retail sector to FDI, CPI(M) today asked why Trinamool Congress could not stop the move when the Left parties had prevented UPA-I from taking such a decision while being an outside supporter.

"FDI in retail was announced by the UPA-I government in its first budget in 2004. Why was this decision (to allow FDI in retail) not taken by UPA-I? That government could not give a go-ahead," CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters here.

"We were outside supporters and had pressurised the government not to undertake this measure. But Trinamool Congress is inside the government. If we could stop it, they should explain how a member of the Union Cabinet is not able to do so. That itself speaks volumes of what they say outside and what they do inside," he said.

Yechury also alleged that the government committed "gross impropriety" by deciding to open up retail sector to foreign investment when Parliament was in session.

He quoted two instances in which the then Lok Sabha Speakers had ruled that decisions or announcements outside Parliament when it was in session amounted to "impropreity".

"It is noteworthy that in the past, it was the Congress that seriously objected to the government announcing policy decisions when the parliament was in session," he said.

In 1989, the current Home Minister, P Chidambaram, had moved a privilege motion against then Prime Minister V P Singh for announcing a decision to establish a paramilitary force called National Rifles when Parliament was in session.

Though the privilege motion was not admitted, then Speaker Rabi Rai had ruled that the government decision was a breach of propriety, Yechury said.