Centre forgot promises made to resolve Kashmir issue: Sitaram Yechury

Centre forgot promises made to resolve Kashmir issue: Yechury Bhubaneswar, Aug 18 (PTI) Criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Independence Day statement that the Kashmir issue would not be resolved by "bullets or abuses", the CPI(M) today alleged the Centre was not sincere in resolving the problem in the valley.

"The Centre has not fulfilled a single promise made before a Parliamentary Party delegation that visited Kashmir some time ago. Home Minister Rajnath Singh had announced steps to resolve the problem, but failed to fulfil," CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters here.

Referring to the prime minister's statement, Yechury said the Centre had promised to start confidence building measures among people of Kashmir and create employment opportunities for the youths. "Nothing has been done so far. Making statements will not resolve the issue," Yechury said.

In his Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Tuesday, Modi had said bullets or abuses will not help resolve the Kashmir problem and a change can only take place by embracing all Kashmiris.

"Na gaali se, na goli se, parivartan hoga gale lagaane se...samasya suljhegi har Kashmiri ko gale lagane se," Modi had said.

Yechury sought a clarification from the Centre on Income Tax returns, saying "While the prime minister says that 56 lakh new returns have been made after implementation of GST, the finance minister claims the number to be 91 lakh. An official statement puts the number at 31 lakh while the government's chief economic advisor says it is five lakh," he said.

Therefore, Yechury said the Centre must clarify which figure on I-T returns is correct in order to end confusion.

Similarly, he said, the suffering of the people has increased after GST, and beneficiaries are denied sugar and kerosene at affordable prices.

He claimed farmers suicide rate has increased as the governments of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh have not implemented the agriculture loan waiver as announced by the BJP governments in these states.

"The government was yet to implement promises of providing one-and-half-times of the input cost as the minimum support price to the farmers. The farmers are ending their lives out of frustration," he said.

On black money, the CPI(M) leader said the Reserve Bank of India has no information on the amount of money received after demonetisation. "All black money has been made white through this demonetisation scheme," Yechury said.

Referring to a news report, Yechury demanded a complete ban on the corporate funding of political parties.

"According to the report, the ruling BJP is the biggest beneficiary by availing Rs 705 crore followed by Congress which got Rs 198 crore of the total Rs 900 crore distributed among the parties," he said.

Yechury said both CPI and CPI(M) have received Rs 2 crore as part of corporate funding.

While demanding a ban on such a practice, Yechury said, "We will support a law like the one on CSR (corporate social funding). You can create a fund, call it Democracy Fund, which can be managed by the Election Commission or the government and start state-funding of elections".

He alleged that parties with so much money push funds during elections and dilute the democratic process.

"Corporates in a way invest in politics and get back returns when the particular party comes to power," Yechury said.

On the united opposition meeting held in New Delhi, he said they were planning to involve social organisations and expand activities in near future.

He said CPI(M) will start a fortnight-long agitation programme against the Centre's economic and foreign policies across the country from September 1.