Communists to focus reforms on the poor

Sitaram Yechury, a senior member of the Communist Party of India Marxist, told AFP members wanted more stress on employment, creating food security and greater development of villages.

"We will want reforms for the people's welfare and not those concerned only with corporate profits. In the last few years, the balance was missing."

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India's economy grew by an estimated 8.1 percent in the last fiscal year under the previous market-friendly Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition.

But the BJP suffered a stunning rebuff in the elections last week for ignoring the rural masses who felt left out of India's economic boom and focussing on promoting the private sector.

Concern that a Congress-led alliance government backed by the communists could put many economic reforms on the backburner and slow down the economy has sent shudders through India's stock markets.

Yechury said speculation over whether the new government would block foreign investments in industry and roll back privatisation of state-run firms was baseless.

"We will welcome foreign investment so long as they result in upgrading technology, build capacity and generate more employment," Yechury said, adding he had no objections to India's flourishing call centre industry that unions in the West say are stealing jobs.

Like Congress, the communists were also not opposed to the sale of government stakes in state-run firms, as long as they were not in profit-making ones, he added.

But state sell-offs of money-spinning state-firms, including prized oil refining and discovery companies and telephone service operators, would be off the privatisation list.