Stung by Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s veiled criticism of the Left parties’ attack on UPA Government’s ecomonic policies, key outside ally CPI(M) on Sunday hit back saying his “neo-liberal” economic agenda “has intensified inequalities”.“The Finance Minister should work more closely on the lines of the Common Minimum Programme than. his own economic agenda,” CPI(M) Politburo member Brinda Karat told news channel Times Now.Chidambaram had said in Madurai on Saturday that “some 60 members of Parliament” criticised everything being done by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and him to improve the economy and argued that those who claim that growth only helped the rich are the “worst enemies of the poor.”“The pattern of growth in the neo-liberal framework promoted by Chidambaram and some of his colleagues has clearly intensified inequalities in India,” Karat, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, alleged.Echoing the same sentiments, senior party Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said growth must accrue to the vast majority of India’s population.“I think this is a very wrong contention and I think this is deliberately misleading the general opinion. The benefit of growth must accrue to the vast majority of the Indian population who somehow seem to be excluded from this growth process,” he said. “Those who say market growth is irrelevant and those who say the growth only helps the rich are the worst enemies of the poor. It is because of the growth, the Government is able to do many development programmes,” Chidambaram had said on Saturday in Madurai.“On the market growth, they (the MPs) say growth is irrelevant. They say this growth only percolates to very small group of people. What do they want us to do. (Do) they only want us to distribute poverty in this country,” he had said.
