RSS trade union arm trains guns on govt, seeks Niti Aayog rejig

NEW DELHI: The trade union arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has trained its guns on the government for pursuing disinvestment and for acting on the advice of the Niti Aayog, which has been dubbed as an “expensive exercise with lopsided intellectuals.”

The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), which represents more than 5,000 affiliate unions, wants the government to revisit the composition of the Niti Aayog to include representatives of women, labourers, farmers and medium and small scale sectors.

The BMS at its annual twoday meeting in Kanpur last week passed a resolution demanding the reorganisation of the government think-tank and demanded that it should “remove the entire anti-worker proposals and ‘action plan document on Labour and Employment” from its website.

It also wants the disinvestment policy revisited, claiming many of the decisions to disinvest have been “influenced by land sharks”. “As of now the Niti Aayog only represents corporates.

It does not even represent India. It has on board people who have probably not even visited a village, but are making decisions for those who live there,” the zonal organising secretary of the BMS Pawan Kumar said on Saturday.

This is not the first time that the NITI Aayog has been criticised by an RSS offshoot. Earlier, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch held a two-day brainstorming on its utility and said the Aayog that was supposed to lead in the field of policy making by incorporating people’s aspirations has failed to do so.

The BMS, which has often been accused of going soft on the government by opting to back out of trade union protests at the eleventh hour, has cautioned that it will take to the streets on June 22-23 to protest against the anti-labour policies of the government. This would be followed by a demonstration outside the Parliament in November, Kumar said. Last week’s Cabinet decision to disinvest Janpath Hotel in the Capital has given the trade body more ammunition against the government’s policies.

“If the government is unable to maintain it, they should give us the enterprise, we will run it and make profits,” said Kumar. He said the hotel was deliberately mismanaged, with no efforts made to even claim rent for the past few years from offices that occupy space. “Disinvestment is being orchestrated under influence of the land sharks,” the union leader said. Proposal to merge various employee provident fund entities into one, investing the money from these in the stock market and raising a corpus for senior citizens have also been vetoed by the BMS.

It has also called for constituting the third press commission, as labour laws are being flouted and replace the press council with a media council.