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Updated: 08/07/2008 | 11:51 PM IST
Skepticism over SP’s economic agenda
Samina Hirani and Sapna Das
Tuesday, July 08, 2008 (Mumbai)
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Mixing business with politics makes for a volatile coacktail. The Samajwadi Party has some influential friends but will these friends now influence the country's economic policy as the balance of power now shifts to Lucknow?

The SP is already making noises about its economic vision which most political analysts say is customised for a favoured few.

"The big reforms will not move forward as we don’t expect any structural reforms like FDI in insurance. They are personality oriented so it is more about interests of certain corporate houses being pushed. Disinvestment might not be such a holy cow with SP," said Chandan Mitra, Editor, Pioneer.

SP's General Secretary Amar Singh has already written two letters to the PM charting out a clear economic roadmap.

According to him the government should use forex reserves to strengthen the rupee and bring down inflation. He also beleives the finance minister should fix the exchange rate and not the RBI.

“There should be a windfall tax on the revenues of upstream and downstream oil companies. The government should also disincentivise petroleum exports from India by cancelling the EOU status of RIL's Jamnagar refinery. The telecom ministry should stop helping the GSM operators by being lenient on spectrum charges,” said Singh.

"The one thing that is uniting Prakash Karat and Amar Singh is that they both believe that RIL’s windfall profits should be taxed. It is because Amar Singh also says that if Anil Ambani has spectrum which should have been 3 and a half times higher than the price he paid, so we are seeing a nexus between big business and politics at these uncertain times," said Paranjoy Guha Thakurata, political analyst.

But India Inc feels it is still tense time at the Delhi durbar.

"The uncertainty is something that corporates are beginning to accept and live with we are factoring it into our operations," said H M Bangur, MD, Shree Cement.

"I don’t think Left’s withdrawal of support adds to certainty. As there are still people speculating of what will happen in the future," said Puneet Chadha, Head-Commercial Banking, HSBC.

So while important reforms like the banking bill or the insurance bill may still not pass the vote even though the UPA has a new partner. But as most analysts believe expect reforms but the ones with a twist.

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