To woo India Inc, political rivals unveil economic agenda

Traditional political rivals, the Congress and the BJP, and new entrant, the Aam Aadmi Party, were present at CII’s National Council meeting to unveil their economic agenda and woo India Inc.

While job generation and boosting the manufacturing sector dominated the economic agendas of the three, on contentious issues such as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail and definition of ‘good governance’ they had differing perspectives.

Anand Sharma, Minister for Commerce and Industry, while highlighting the focus areas of the Congress, which include skill development and subsidy reduction, said that to attract foreign investors it is important that the tax regime is predictable and stable.

Dig at FinMin Sharma was not only critical of the Opposition for blocking key policy decisions of the UPA Government, but also took a dig at his own colleague in the Finance Ministry for messing up the Special Economic Zone policy. Emphasising that neither he nor his party was anti-capitalism, AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal felt that “business should not be done by Government”.

With this, he also categorically distanced the party and himself from a statement made by his colleague Prashant Bhushan that the state should have a stake in business.

BJP’s Piyush Goyal, while harping of the achievements of Narendra Modi, said the focus of any Government should be job creation, skill development, boosting manufacturing, promoting tourism and providing good governance.