TMC opposes NMP, slams BJP for asset privatisation

West Bengal's ruling Trinamul Congress on Tuesday vehemently opposed the Centre's National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), accusing the BJP of selling public assets to the corporates.

TMC Rajya Sabha MP Shukhendu Sekhar Roy alleged, “NMP was not discussed either in the Parliament or in any Parliamentary Committee or in the Consultative Committee of the Finance Ministry. There was a brief mention about the same in the Budget speech by the Finance Minister. This was decided by the NITI Aayog, which is not a constitutional body, but was set up after a recommendation from the government.”

He claimed, “BJP never mentioned anything about this massive economic overhaul in their election manifesto of 2014 and 2019. If they would have mentioned it in the manifesto and won the election afterwards, we could have concluded that it is people's mandate, but since they did not do that, now we can say that people do not want the NMP.”

The TMC MP also argued, “In a vast country like India, it is not acceptable that all the public properties will be handed over to private players like this. They have already paved way for disinvestment in several government owned organisations. This was supposed to be in PPP model, but notably, the assets will be 'perpetually leased' to the private companies which will be renewable after every 25 years.”

He observed, “The government plans to raise Rs 6,00,000 crores in the next 4 years from leasing out these properties through NMP. This government is not going to be there after four years. So how can they decide what will happen after four years?”