After Cong, CPI(M) goes for austerity

The 'rectification' document was given finishing touches at the one-day meeting of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau 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 Polit Bureau 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 here later this month. "All wrong trends in the party will be rectified. The rectification will be done at all levels," Polit Bureau member M K Pandhe told reporters. 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) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury told reporters.