Kerala’s new chief minister V.S. Achutanandan has a reputation for being conservative on development issues, but the Left clearly realises that jobs and investment in business can fetch good political dividends. So it is not surprising when Achutanandan says in an interview to People’s Democracy: ‘‘Our new LDF government will leave no stone unturned in developing and attracting new investments in the field of Information Technology.’’ He goes on to say that ‘‘many IT giants’’ had met him and offered to set up business in Kerala that would provide ‘‘thousands of employment opportunities’’ to IT professionals.

However, he tries to stay close to his image with a disclaimer that his government would focus on the interests of peasants and traditional industries that, according to him, had suffered during the previous UDF regime. Achutanandan comes into his own while explaining LDF victories in IUML strongholds and ‘‘impressive gains’’ among women voters. Apart from highlighting the ice-cream parlour sex scandal, he believes the CPM’s stand against the UPA’s position on the Iranian nuclear programme and its ‘‘pro-American’’ policies won the support Muslim voters. As for support from women voters, he says this has to do with his campaign against sex rackets and sexual assaults on women which the previous government failed to deal with.

More pressure on UPA

The message that the Left would like to send to the government following the victories in West Bengal and Kerala is that it will now bring to bear more pressure on the UPA government. It may not have started off ideally—with the government effecting a steep hike in petrol and diesel prices on Monday —but during a victory rally in Kolkata, reported in People’s Democracy, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat promised the Left would now bring more pressure on the UPA government ‘‘not to go in for anti-people policies’’.

However, at the very same rally, West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee made a familiar speech: step up the urbanisation drive, bring in more investments, expand trade and commerce, and improve the state government’s work culture. For the record, he also said a balance must be maintained between industrialisation, agricultural expansion and land. The chief minister, who in recent days has been given hints to tone down his liberal image, evidently has little intention of doing so and said the state’s progress was along an ‘‘untravelled path’’ and ‘‘there was no scope for looking back and decelerating’’. This, he firmly told the rally, was the ‘‘will of the people of Bengal and India’’.

Act on CAG recommendations

In The Stock Market Meltdown: A Preliminary Comment, Prasenjit Bose positions himself alongside the CBDT which had issued the so-called ‘‘rogue circular’’ for taxing FII transactions, and against capital account convertibility. He believes that after the May 22 crash, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram is seen to be ‘‘desperately advising’’ investors not to panic.

‘‘It is obvious that the public financial institutions are being instructed to buy heavily in the stock market in order to prevent any further fall of the indices.’’ As for the CBDT circular, it was in keeping with the ‘‘eminently reasonable recommendations of the CAG’’ as presented in a report to Parliament last month. According to him, the efforts to ‘‘bring the enormous profits’’ of the FIIs within the tax net had led to the flight of capital and this was an effort to blackmail the government to abandon steps to tax speculative gains.

Bose makes three suggestions: that the CBDT should go ahead with the recommendations of the CAG especially with regard to the cost-benefit analysis of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements; reintroduce long-term capital gains tax; give up plans for introducing capital account convertibility because it would be a ‘‘sure recipe for large-scale capital flight and currency crisis’’.

Fida over Fanaa

Taking up Aamir Khan’s cause, the CPM daily believes the Gujarat government’s actions is reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany. There is no official ban, writes

V. Srinivasarao, but the BJP’s youth wing, the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha has arrogated to itself the authority to act as an extra constitutional authority to force a ban on Fanaa in Gujarat.

The Bollywood actor’s case is not merely related to his support for the Narmada Bachao Andolan and tribals displaced by the Sardar Sarovar project. He is also a victim of cultural policing, says the author, citing earlier actions against Mallika Sarabhai and M.F. Hussain.

The Aamir issue certainly brings back the Left’s activism on cultural issues —-the party’s Politburo had earlier issued a statement on Fanaa. But the author’s unabashed praise for Khan is embarrassing. ‘‘Aamir is not an individual, he represents a justified cause. To support him means in a broader sense to support people, support democracy, support secularism, support patriotism.’’

—Compiled by Ananda Majumdar