Strongly protesting the decision to open up the retail sector to FDI, Left parties on Friday termed the move as 'unprecedented' and said the government should have discussed it first in Parliament before taking the decision.
"It is unprecedented. When Parliament is in session, a major decision was taken outside Parliament. It has never happened," Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters outside Parliament House.
"We will not discuss the FDI issue in Parliament unless government revokes the decision. We will oppose it in the House and outside also," he said.
Attacking Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress' 'contradictory' stand, Yechury said, "On one hand, they are allowing the Cabinet to clear the FDI proposal, on the other they are protesting the decision in the House."
Dubbing the decision as 'anti-people', he said it would render many people jobless and increase unemployment.
CPI National Secretary D Raja termed the move as 'most unwise' particularly when Parliament was in session and said it would lead to the displacement of millions of people from jobs, adversely affect the service sector and seriously harm the small and marginal farmers.
Maintaining that the livelihood of 50 crore (500 million) people were dependent on the retail sector, he said it was 'really an anti-people decision which has been taken as the government is toeing the line given by
the multinational corporations'.
The CPI-M said international experience has shown that supermarkets everywhere 'invariably displace small retailers', who have been 'virtually wiped out' in the developed countries like the US and Europe.
South East Asian countries had to impose stringent zoning and licensing regulations in order to restrict the growth of supermarkets, after small retailers started getting displaced, it said.
Maintaining that India had the highest shopping density in the world, with 11 shops per 1,000 people, it said there are over 1.2 crore shops employing over four crore people with 95 per cent of them run by self-employed persons in less than 500 square feet area.
"These small shopkeepers in the urban areas are going to be hit the hardest with the entry of the MNC retailers," the CPI-M statement said.
It also said that international experience had shown that procurement by MNC retailers did not benefit small farmers, who receive depressed prices and find it difficult to meet the arbitrary quality standards.
"Allowing procurement by MNCs is basically an attempt by the government to whittle down its own procurement responsibilities.
"This will have an adverse impact on food security," the major Left party said, adding that small manufacturers would also get squeezed due to predatory pricing by the MNCs.
The domestic market would get flooded with foreign goods and 'greater monopoly power and storage capacity for the big corporates will rather promote hoarding and profiteering', the CPI-M added.