Did Wal-Mart fund majority in Parl on FDI, asks CPI(M)

New Delhi: Accusing Congress of “manufacturing majority” in Parliament on FDI in retail issue, CPI(M) today asked whether this was funded by American retail giant Wal-Mart. “An independent and time-bound inquiry is necessary. It is necessary to find out whether the amount (reportedly spent by Wal-Mart in lobbying) was spent on bribes too,” senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said here. Observing that the US media reports had said that the company had spent $25 million on lobbying with US lawmakers in 2012, he said “it has to be found whether Wal-Mart financed this majority (in Parliament) too,” he said, referring to the vote in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on the issue of FDI in retail. In this context, he also referred to the Enron power project case in Maharashtra saying the now-bankrupt US energy firm had “spent money to ’educate’ Indian officials about the company.” Yechury said Wal-Mart considered India a “very big market” as its own estimations valued the retail market here to be worth $500 billion which is set to grow to $ one trillion by 2020. [caption id=“attachment_553602” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury argues in the Rajya Sabha. PTI[/caption] Wal-Mart, he said, was looking at India at a time when US and Europe had been hit by the global recession and Britain was threatening to walk out of the European Union. “This is the simple truth” about Wal-Mart’s interests in India and the company was “not interested in investing to improve infrastructure but solely to reap profits,” he said. “The US retail chain has been “doing such activity not only in India but in a large number of other countries also, most of them developing ones. Their activities in Mexico for eight years have now come to light,” the Marxist leader said, adding “our stand has been vindicated”. To questions on government agreeing to a probe, he said “we are open to a judicial inquiry, either by a sitting or a retired judge, or one under the Inquiry Act. CBI can be used (by the probe panel) to investigate.” On RBI’s amendments to Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) which would give legal effect to FDI in retail, Yechury said the amendments have not have been tabled in Rajya Sabha so far, though they have been placed in Lok Sabha. “By not tabling it in the Upper House, the government is violating the equality of the two Houses provided in our Constitution. The government is trying to throw a subterfuge as it knows that, most likely, it will lose in Rajya Sabha”, he said. Observing that the amendments would “have to be laid in both Houses within 30 days”, he said the last day is 13 December. “If they don’t do it by then, the judicial review process, which is already on in the Supreme Court, will take over. Not tabling them will be serious subversion of our parliamentary structure.” PTI