The Communist Party of India (Marxist) renewed calls for transnational supermarkets to be booted out of the retail sector as Tesco announced its entry to the country.

The supermarket giant said it will invest £85 million to take a 50 per cent share of Tata-owned Trent Hypermarket Ltd, which operates a chain of 12 stores across southern and western India.

Fears that foreign firms will take over India's shopping scene, putting 40m jobs at risk and spurring a flow of profits out of the country, have been rife since the neoliberal Congress Party-led government relaxed ownership controls in 2012.

The CPI(M) pledged to reverse weakened restrictions on foreign capital in their election manifesto, launched on Thursday.

Speaking in New Delhi as the programme was unveiled, party leaders slammed the government's record of soaring food prices and letting capitalist companies "loot the natural resources of the country, whether it be land, minerals or gas."

General secretary Prakash Karat attacked "unprecedented" corruption at the heart of India's Establishment, noting that the main opposition Hindu chauvinist BJP party was just as mired in scandal as Congress.

"The country needs to be rescued from the politics of Congress and the BJP," Mr Karat said.

The CPI(M) also called for a "universal public distribution system" to provide subsidised food for the poor, higher taxation on the rich and on corporate profits and more spending on health and education.

It urged allocating a third of seats in all state and national parliaments to women and abolishing the death penalty.