BJP leader LK Advani on Sunday slammed prime minister Manmohan Singh over the issue of allowing FDI in multi-brand retail and said the red carpet was being rolled out for Wal-Mart when it faced protests even in the US.
He also said the BJP had opposed the measure when the NDA was in power.
In his latest blog, the BJP leader referred to the reported unrest brewing against America’s largest retailer Wal-Mart in various US cities at a time when the government here is “rolling out the red carpet” for it.
Quoting an article of author and financial expert S Gurumurthy, he said that on September 14 when Manmohan Singh rolled out the red carpet for Wal-Mart, the same day “New York City shut Wal-Mart out”.
He also referred to a web-based newspaper that carried a story on how Wal-Mart displaced nearby small businesses the day FDI in retail was notified in India last week.
“Weeks ago, on June 30, over 10,000 people, shouting ‘Wal-Mart = Poverty’, marched through Los Angeles against Wal-Mart stores,” Advani said quoting Gurumurthy.
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He also quoted a New York Times report on how Mexico has become the second largest country for Wal-Mart after the US in terms of number of stores.
“According to a New York Times report, this has been achieved by the retail giant’s Mexico arm by dishing out generous payouts to aid its mammoth growth,” he said.
Advani said that shortly after the Times published its investigation in April, 2012, Wal-Mart confirmed that it had launched an investigation into the “allegations of bribery at Wal-Mart de Mexico”.
Advani also recalled an exchange between Congress leader Priyaranjan Dasmunshi and the then industry and commerce minister Arun Shourie in the Lok Sabha on December 16, 2002.
Munshi, citing an Economic Times article, had raised the issue that the NDA government was being pressured to open up FDI in retail. Shourie said that since 1997 the policy had been to not allow FDI in retail. Advani infers that there has been opposition to FDI in retail even in the Congress party and he quotes Munshi as saying in that exchange, “...multinational retailers are continuously putting pressure on the government to take this anti-national decision of allowing foreign direct investment in the retail trade.
Edited By Cen Fox Post Team
