New Delhi, February 12 Congress leader Anand Sharma criticized Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday for criticizing India's stance at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Bali in 2013 during the UPA rule, and accused her of "deliberately misinforming" Parliament to justify the "sellout" interim trade deal with the US.
For purely political gains, Sitharaman was misleading the nation and making a "coordinated claim" that the UPA government "sold out" India's food security at the WTO meeting in Bali, the former commerce minister alleged in a statement.
"It is unfortunate and shocking that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has deliberately misinformed the Parliament about the agreements reached at the ninth WTO Ministerial meeting in Bali in December 2013.
"In her attempt to justify and defend the sellout interim trade deal with the US, she has made an unfair allegation that the Congress-led UPA government had sold out India's right to food security at the WTO meeting in Bali. This is false and incorrect, and contradicts the facts on record and the WTO's official statement," Sharma said.
Claiming that the finance minister made the claim for political gains, he asserted that "the issue of public stockholding for food security was actually initiated by India at the Bali Ministerial meeting, and these were secured and protected."
Sitharaman, on Wednesday, launched a scathing attack on Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, saying that it was the Congress-led UPA government which surrendered India's interests before international organizations, including the World Trade Organization (WTO), and "sold" the interests of the poor and farmers.
She alleged that it was the Congress which not only sold the interests of the poor and the farmers, but the country itself.
The reality is that it was India's strong and uncompromising stance that forced the issue of procurement of food grains for public stock holding and livelihood on the Bali WTO agenda, despite stiff opposition from the US, the European Union, the Cairns group, and developed nations.
"India fought tenaciously and succeeded in putting together a global coalition of developing countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This forced the developed countries to concede, agree to negotiate a permanent solution to change the outdated WTO rules, which India rejected at Bali as inherently flawed and unjust.
"India also secured for itself and other developing countries, protection from any challenge at WTO for any breach until a negotiated Permanent Solution was put in place," he said.
Sharma claimed that the India-led coalition of developing countries had only consented to the WTO agreements after first securing the right of public stockholding of food grains for food security purposes.
Quoting his own statement in both houses of Parliament on December 13, 2013, he said, "The Bali Ministerial was a resounding victory of the countries of the global south."
The Congress leader claimed that the issue of securing a peace clause on public stockholding for food security purposes was spearheaded by India in the face of determined opposition from the US and the Cairns Group member countries.
However, India succeeded in putting the issue beyond any challenge under the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the WTO through the Bali Declaration, which protected India's public stockholding of foodgrains under the minimum support price programmes from any legal challenge at the WTO, he said.
Sharma said Sitharaman's statement in 2015, when she was the Union commerce minister, saying that the agreement reached at the Bali Ministerial Meeting was a temporary Peace Clause, is "factually incorrect and political dishonesty."
Sitharaman, in an act of political maneuvering, had said in Parliament that a permanent agreement would be concluded before December 2015 as per the assurance given by the then US President to PM Modi, the senior Congress leader said.
"However, despite a lapse of 12 years from the Bali Ministerial Declaration and 11 years from the General Council decision, a permanent solution to the problem is yet to be arrived at," he claimed.