COMMUNISTS have called for radical electoral reform in India in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to deregulate the economy without a proper mandate.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) pointed out that Mr Modi’s Hindu chauvinist BJP had won a “comfortable” majority in parliament with just 31 per cent of the total vote.

And it was using its majority to force a neoliberal agenda onto the nation,s with aggressive moves unveiled this week to open the coal industry to the private sector, remove price controls on diesel and attack job security.

The PM’s Make in India drive promises to cut “red tape” and end “harassment” of businesses by inspectors in a country where violations of basic health and safety standards are already rife.

He has promised to make it easier to fire workers, claiming this will allow the private sector to create jobs.

“Ease of business is the foremost requirement” of boosting economic growth, he announced this week.

Mr Modi also issued an ordinance this week ordering the electronic auction of 214 “coal blocks” — areas of coalfields — to the private sector, after the Supreme Court ruled last month that their previous allocation had been illegal.

The CPI-M said on Wednesday that this “completely nullifies the coal nationalisation Act of 1973” and demanded that “Coal India be empowered to undertake all mining in the country.

“After allocating resources to the public sector and the state electricity boards to provide power for the people, the remaining may be sold in the open market,” it argued.

All India Trade Union Congress general secretary Gurudas Dasgupta said the e-auction was a “backdoor entry for private companies to take over the entire coal sector.”

And All India Coal Workers Federation general secretary Jibon Roy has called for strike action on November 5-7 if the government does not hand the coal blocks to Coal India. 

The CPI-M is demanding a shift to proportional representation to ensure Indian governments cannot rip up the public sector without a mandate to do so.

Both it and the Communist Party of India are backing trade union resistance to coal privatisation.