Friday, May 13 2005 13:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) will take stock of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government's first year in office at its two-day Politburo meeting in New Delhi from tomorrow (May 14. 2005).

"We will take stock of the one-year performance of the UPA Government in our politburo meeting," said the Politburo member and the State secretary of the party Anil Biswas.

Indicating that CPM was viewing the one-year performance of the Government as a mixed one, Biswas told reporters in Kolkata today (May 13, 2005) that his party was not "fully satisfied" with the performance of the UPA Government.

"Nor we are dissatisfied", he added.

"We are making a critical assessment of the performance of the UPA Government. But we think so far the performance of the Manmohan Singh government was better than the previous Vajpayee government," Biswas said. Asked whether his party would attend the UPA event on May 22 to celebrate the one-year of its Government, Biswas said without a direct reply, "We are not part and parcel of the UPA Government."

Meanwhile, party sources today quoted another Politburo member and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee as saying at Bolpur yesterday (May 12, 2005) that the differences persisted between the Left parties and the UPA Government on issues like FDI in telecom sector and privatisation of pension fund and banking sector reforms.

"We know a Government cannot fulfil all its promises in one year. The functioning of the Government started on a positive note. There was greater Central allocation for the Integrated Child Development and mid-day meal scheme and rural employment,'' Bhattacherjee said.

"Still we have differences with the ruling UPA on some issues. We are opposed to allowing FDI in telecom, banking sector reforms, privatisation of pension fund. We want the Government to change its disinvestment policies. We cannot allow the disinvestment of profit-making PSUs", the Chief Minister said.

"We also want steps to introduce the crucial National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill," Bhattacherjee said.

The veteran CPM leader Jyoti Basu and Bhattacherjee are among those to attend the politburo meeting from West Bengal.