All India Forward Bloc today ridiculed UPA government's reported plan to distribute mobile phones among BPL families, describing it as a "cruel joke".
"AIFB is of the opinion that it (distribution of mobile phones) is nothing but a cruel joke with people living in rural areas where more than 40 per cent people do not have adequate food, shelter, water, proper sanitation and healthcare facilities," AIFB general secretary Debabrata Biswas said.
He alleged that the attempt of the government was to give "approximately Rs 7,000 crore to telephone companies and bring rural population into the spider web of cut-throat competition" among domestic and foreign companies.
Biswas also said a party delegation would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue of Sri Lankan Tamils.
"A three-member delegation of the party visited Sri Lanka, particularly the north eastern provinces where Tamil people were forcibly evicted from their native villages," he told newspersons.
Biswas said a party delegation would submit a memorandum to the Prime Minister on the alleged plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils.
The AIFB will hold its 17th Party Congress in Chennai from February 24 to 28, he said at the conclusion of the party's three-day central committee meeting today.
The party also expressed serious concern over continuing violence in Assam, which has claimed many lives and left lakhs homeless.
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