Communist Party of India (Marxist) has attributed the Patel uprising in Gujarat to the failure of much-publicised Gujarat Model of development and said that the demand for reservations would come up only when the educational, employment and livelihood opportunities are denied in general.
At a news conference here on Thursday, the party’s general secretary Sitaram Yechury said that the Government was answerable to people for allowing the situation to go out of control leading to violence and firing.
“Patels in Gujarat are a fairly well-to-do community. But even among them there is such a high degree of discontent. Then clearly, the Gujarat model was a totally exclusive model. That was only benefiting very very few people and not the entire population - not even major sections of population,” he said, terming the model as a complete failure.
The indiscriminate use of force after the Patels’ rally and arrest of civilians triggered the violence and anger, Mr. Yechury said and accused the Government of “complete and thorough mismanagement”.
“Mere appeals to peace by the Prime Minister are meaningless unless the basic issues are addressed,” he said.
Referring to similar demand by Jat community for quite some time in North Indian states, he said that all these instances clearly indicated that the status of welfare of people in the country was very bad, which was attributable to the central government’s policies.
Circumventing a question if the party supported Patels’ demand for reservations, he reiterated the party’s stand as enunciated during Mandal Commission, declaring support for socially backward communities to the exclusion of creamy layer among them and also for reservations for the economically backward classes (ECBs).
“Had there been reservations for EBCs in other communities, there would not have been this eruption of unrest from Patels,” he said, and reminded the BJP’s earlier promise of five per cent reservations for the EBCs which went unimplemented after the party came to power.
Everyone wants a pie of “economic cake” and if it shrinks, problems would erupt, he said, referring to the dwindling employment opportunities in the public sector. The last 15 months of Narendra Modi’s government only made the situation much worse, by pursuing policies against the livelihood interests of people.
Taking the example of onion prices, he said that the Government was resorting only to adhoc and knee jerk reactions through temporary measures after the prices had gone up, while doing nothing with regard to the import export policies of essential commodities.
Despite the “unprecedented” 24 foreign visits by Mr. Modi, he could not fulfil his promise of bringing foreign investments worth thousands of crores of rupees. Despite the global financial turmoil and the wild fluctuations of Sensex, there have been no policy measures addressing people’s livelihood issues. Quite to the contrary, the policies were completely oriented towards sharpening communal polarisation in the country, he added.
Referring to the “piecemeal and selective release” of Census data, which he said was unheard of, Mr.Yechury accused the ruling party of planning to use it for electoral benefits in view of oncoming Bihar assembly elections.
Cautioning people against falling prey for the communal politics, he said that the party would make efforts to mount people’s struggles by forming alliances with social forces.
Answering a question, Mr.Yechury said land acquisition for the capital city of Andhra Pradesh was against the Land Acquisition Act and can be contested in a court of law. He also warned the Telangana Government about simmering discontent among the underprivileged sections which could lead to the Gujarat-like situation in future.
