It’s OLD wine, in old bottle. In the last five years, the only novel idea the CPI-M has found to add to its Election Manifesto 2004 is prohibition of cross-media ownership. Tucked away at the end of the 19-page manifesto and tagged along with what the Prasar Bharati Corporation should be, the section on ‘Media and Culture’ notes: ‘‘Prohibit cross-media ownership to prevent monopolies. Remove decision allowing foreign stakes of print media’’.The rest is same: 1998, 1999 and 2004. The paras read the same, the concerns seem repetitive. The issue of ‘‘Saffronisation of Education’’ may have seen the CPI-M-led West Bengal government launch an organised attack on HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, but the manifesto chooses to remain silent. It’s the same, ‘‘we-are-committed’’ to make education a basic right for children, to allocation of 10 per cent of the budget for education. Not a mention how to stop government’s interference in secondary or higher education.On health, the 2004 manifesto says: ‘‘The CPI-M advocates increasing the expenditure on public health by the government to 5 per cent of the GDP; ensuring supply of essential drugs at prices affordable to the common people.’’It’s been lifted from the 1998 manifesto, which had the extra point of how initiative should be taken to eradicate diseases like malaria and TB. Unfortunately that has been dropped this time.On foreign policy, it says ‘‘an independent and non-aligned foreign policy.South-South cooperation. Opposition to US superpower unilateralism.Dialogue with Pakistan should be pursued seriously without the US intervention and promote people-to-people relation.’’ Word by word it has been the same for the last three election manifestoes. The insurance sector has been partially opened up, but the Marxist manifesto writers thought otherwise. The same paragraph from 1989 manifesto continues to be reprinted: ‘‘Steps to strengthen LIC and GIC as part of the public sector in the insurance field; foreign companies should be barred entry into this sector; the trend of privatising the banking sector should be halted.’’
