Friday, March 10 2006 20:31 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Ahead of Assembly polls in the Left-ruled West Bengal, the CPI(M) today (Mar 10 2006) reminded the BJP of its failed India Shining campaign during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections as both parties came face to face to discuss free market reforms which the main Opposition said have largely been pro-consumer.

"You learned it hard way when your India Shining campaign was not accepted by the people," CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley, the party's poll manager for West Bengal, at the India Today conclave here.

The Left leader, a proponent of greater state role in market-driven economy, fiercely opposed privatisation of profit-making state-owned companies and hotels as he discussed merits of liberalisation with the BJP leader.

"It's just like a farmer selling his land to meet his needs," Yechury remarked. He said he was averse to state pulling out its stakes from public sector companies for their supposed incompetence.

"Privatisation of public assets makes neither economic nor common sense. Make them functional if you find them inefficient. Inefficiency cannot be an excuse for privatisation of such enterprises," the Left leader said.

Also, Yechury opposed both job and subisidy cuts, saying efforts should rather be directed toward effective implementation of subsidies and toward generation of more employment.

In his talk, Jaitley, a former Disinvestment Minister, supported privatisation of state-run hotels as he welcomed economic reforms initiated in the 1990s. "Whereever we have chosen to open up, our experience has been pleasant, consumer and revenue friendly," he added.