The Hindu : New Delhi News : BJP slams Centre for increase in prices

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Thursday, Feb 11, 2010
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New Delhi

BJP slams Centre for increase in prices

Special Correspondent

- Photo: V. Sudershan

Up in arms: BJP president Nitin Gadkari along with party leaders (from left) Anant Kumar, V. K. Malhotra, Sushma Swaraj, M. M. Joshi and O. P. Kohli taking part in a protest rally against the Centre’s inability to control prices of essentials commodities in New Delhi on Wednesday.

NEW DELHI: A day after formally assuming office, the new BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday hit out at the UPA Government at the Centre for all-round increase in prices that has hit the people hard. He charged that the Government was behind a Rs.2.8 lakh crore scandal that finds its roots in the permission to carry out futures trading in commodities.

Addressing a protest demonstration organised by the BJP at Jantar Mantar here, Mr. Gadkari declared that the party would intensify its agitation in the days to come. He said while today’s protest was a trailer, a massive demonstration would be held in Delhi on February 22 when lakhs of party workers would gherao Parliament on the first days of the Budget Session.

Mr. Gadkari was particularly critical of the policies of Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. With a large number of party workers in attendance -- many of them carrying placards with slogans or wearing strings of vegetables on their bodies -- he minced no words in attacking Mr. Pawar for the current state of affairs.

Slamming Mr. Pawar’s party for suggesting that consuming less sugar would prevent people from getting diabetes, he accused the Minister of worrying more about the Indian Premier League than the rising food prices. Using cricket terminology, he said the price of sugar had crossed the half-century mark while pulses had scored a ton. The BJP president also accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of failing to manage the economy despite being an economist. He alleged that “people are being looted by the UPA Government through commodity exchange”.

He charged that a “big scandal” has been allowed to take place through the commodity exchange. “In the commodity exchange, 1.22 crore tonnes of turmeric was shown to be sold while the actual delivery was only 5 per cent. So the trade is primarily on paper,” Mr Gadkari said, adding that this was the case with other commodities too and it was a Rs. 2.8 lakh crore scandal.

The demonstrations was attended by a large number of senior BJP leader including Sushma Swaraj, Murli Manohar Joshi, Ananth Kumar, Vijay Goel, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Delhi BJP president O. P. Kohli, his predecessor Harsh Vardhan and former Delhi Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana.

Ms. Swaraj took the opportunity to recall how the rise in onion prices had led to the fall of the BJP Government in Delhi in 1998 when she was the Chief Minister. Whenever the Congress is in power, she said, the ghost of price rise comes to haunt the masses.

Prof. Joshi exhorted the party workers to take the message out to the masses. He said the UPA Government had proved useless and would be pulled down by the people.

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