Present power crisis due to Centre's faulty policy: AB Bardhan

LUCKNOW: The CPI today held Centre's "faulty policy" responsible for present power crisis and accused Adani and Tata groups of "blackmailing" by closing down power plants run by them, that generates over 8,000 MW electricity, to get the tariff revised.

"When the country was witnessing the most acute power crisis of the history due to faulty power policy of the Centre, closure of power plants with over 8,000 MW capacity by Adani and Tata groups to get the power tariff changed amounted to blackmail and the government must act tough against them," said AB Bardhan, veteran CPI leader.
He alleged when the Supreme Court on August 25 stayed hike in power tariff, these companies stopped their production.
Bardan, who is also Convener of national coordination committee of Power engineers and employees, held the policy of previous UPA government responsible for the crisis and demanded an amendment.
"The over dependability on private firms for power was responsible for the crisis being faced by the country. The amendment done by UPA government in Electricity Act 2003 should be taken back. In this amendment power supply and distribution were separated and licences for power supply was advocated," the former CPI General Secretary said.
Demanding the Narendra Modi government to review the "faulty power policy" of the UPA government at the earliest, Bardhan said "till this was done, process of privatisation, giving franchisee and amending the act should be stopped."
Due to UPA's power policy, a number of scams like coalgate and others have taken place and were coming to fore, he added.
Bardhan also announced that power engineers and employees would stage dharna during Winter Session of the Parliament in New Delhi and other places on the issue.
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Was a mistake to form a third front before elections: CPI's AB Bardhan

Karan Thapar,CNN-IBN | Mar 16, 2014 at 11:18am IST
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/was-a-mistake-to-form-a-third-front-before-elections-cpis-ab-bardhan/458212-37-64.html

New Delhi: Former CPI general secretary AB Bardhan has admitted that it was a mistake for the Left front to attempt to forge a third front alliance before the polls.

In conversation with Karan Thapar on this week's Devil's Advocate, he also said the embarrassment of its premature failure could have been avoided if the Left had not gone into seat sharing talks with so many regional parties.

Bardhan also accepted that he was "disappointed" by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa's behaviour and felt "slighted" by her offer of only one seat in the state, while repeatedly pointing out that Jayalalithaa was the one who approached the Left Parties and announced the alliance.

Here is an excerpt of the conversation:

Karan Thapar: The third front the left parties tried to put together, would you accept it ended in embarrassing failure

AB Bardhan: I wouldn't say embarrassing failure. I have always maintained that such a front can come about only after the elections

Karan Thapar: Was it a mistake to try and put it together before the elections

AB Bardhan: No. It is difficult to put it together before the elections, because a third front can come about only with a non Congress, non BJP parties. Mostly these are regional parties

Karan Thapar: It is not just difficult. It resulted in embarrassing headlines. So I put it to you again, was it a mistake to try the difficult at the wrong time.

AB Bardhan: I think you see we need not have gone on trying to work out you see adjustments with all regional parties. That we need not have tried. Because some of the regional parties wanted to maximise their seats and they were not willing to concede any seat to the left.

Karan Thapar: So you do accept that the attempt to work out regional arrangements with regional parties was a mistake

AB Bardhan: All the regional parties, was a mistake.