After Congress, CPI-M goes for austerity

The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Sunday finalised a plan to rectify the 'wrong trends' in the party under which guidelines were formulated for an austerity drive and to make its ministers more accountable.

The 'rectification' document was given finishing touches at the one-day meeting of the CPI-M politburo, which was attended by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who had skipped several meetings of the party's central leadership in the recent weeks.

With party cadres raising complaints about the functioning of ministers, CPI-M sources said the politburo came out with a guideline, which lists some Do's and Don'ts, for the ministers as well as MPs.

It is understood that as per the guideline the ministers will be asked not to appoint relatives as their private staff and if they do so, they will have to take the permission of the leadership concerned.

The 'rectification document' will be forwarded to central committee for ratification. The committee will meet in New Delhi later this month.

"All wrong trends in the party will be rectified. The rectification will be done at all levels," politburo member M K Pandhe told mediapersons.

The CPI-M will also ask its cadre and leaders not to adopt a neo-liberal lifestyle and go for austerity measures. Specific details of the party's version of austerity were not immediately known. But the party took a dig at the Congress 'style' of austerity.

"We have seen the austerity of Congress style. The style in which an MP buys an economy class, sits in an economy class till the flight takes off and then move to business class. This is not the style of austerity which we are talking about," CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury told mediapersons.