The Trinamool Congress on Tuesday launched a blistering attack on the BJP Government for “leaving no stone unturned to sell out India’s assets,” in the name of “National Monetisation Pipeline” and promised a countrywide agitation to thwart what its leaders called “an attempt to auction India.”
Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had on Monday announced the Centre’s ambitious policy of collecting `6 lakh crore by leasing out national assets to the private companies.
Accusing the Centre of hiding the matter in Parliament, senior party MP Sukhendu Shekhar Roy said, “the issue was discussed neither in Parliament nor in any Parliamentary Committee or the Consultative Committee of the Finance Ministry. There was just a passing reference about it in the Finance Minister’s Budget speech. In fact this decision was taken by the NITI Aayog, which is not a constitutional body, but a mere Government institution…”
He said “who gave this Government the power to take such a big decision … did they get a popular mandate on this issue … there was no mention of this massive economic overhaul in their election manifesto of 2014 and 2019… had they mentioned it in the manifesto and won the election, then it could have been said that it is people’s mandate… But as they are taking such a big decision --- where the future of the entire nation is at stake --- without people’s permission we have every right to protest … we can say that people do not want the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP).”
Saying that decisions to hand over such huge number of public assets to the private players in a large country like India should not be taken without taking the people or Parliament into confidence Roy said that “Public Private Partnership (PPP) is an acceptable model but not this one where the entire wealth will get concentrated in select hands.”
Saying that the transferring the assets on lease for 25 years “means perpetual alienation of the property,” the TMC leadership said “on what will the Government fall back on during economic crisis…” and added, “our party will stage a country-wide agitation against this anti-people stance of the Government.”
Alleging that the BJP Government had during the Monsoon Session brought a “black law” banning strikes against unjust policies of the employers the TMC leadership said the “black law” must not be seen separately from the new monetization scheme where the leasing companies would get a free hand to mercilessly pursue hire and fire policy creating a massive job crisis.