Barack Obama will have a business agenda: CPI(M)

CPI(M) today said US President Barack Obama will have "certain business agenda", including a defence deal, during his maiden visit to India next month and opposed any possible increased access of American farm products in the country's market.

"Obama is coming to India with a business agenda. It has been outlined in a reported letter to the prime minister," CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said at a seminar on "Food Security" in Bhubaneswar.

Obama's business agenda included a defence deal involving sale of arms to India and certain major products in telecom and atomic energy sector, he claimed.

"India's role as a subordinate ally to US will be further cemented if Obama sells his business agenda here," the CPI(M) leader said.

There is tremendous pressure from World Trade Organisation to give free access to American agricultural products and "this could spell doom for farmers and the general public in our country," he said.

Yechury opposed the recommendation of the National Advisory Council to provide 25kg of foodgrain free of cost to the poor under the Antodaya Yojana.

"Under the Yojana, the poor get 35kg but if the recommendation is implemented they would get less," he said.

Demanding universalisation of PDS, Yechury said the UPA government at the Centre should have no hesitation in giving Rs90,000 crore for it when it relaxed indirect tax of Rs9.33 lakh crore for "capitalists" during the past two years.

CPI(M), he said, would organise nation-wide agitation demanding universalisation of PDS.