Mayawati skips PM's meet on price rise

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, who is engaged in a war of words with the Centre on price rise, skipped the chief ministers' conference convened by prime minister Manmohan Singh here today.

Mayawati deputed her finance minister Lalji Verma for the meeting which was attended by most of the chief ministers and state food and civil supplies ministers.

Soon after the Centre had announced the chief ministers conference, Mayawati had held food and agriculture minister
Sharad Pawar responsible for the price rise and said unless he
was removed, she would not attend the meeting.

The prime minister, however, had appreciated the efforts by Pawar to see "what can be done to control it (price rise)". 

Mayawati also had a tiff with the Centre and stuck to her stand for not allowing processing of imported raw sugar in Uttar Pradesh.

Referring to the issue, Singh appealed to the UP government to help the Centre to deal with rising prices of sugar. "We must expedite the processing of imported raw sugar and remove all impediments coming in the way," he added. 

To overcome the problem created by UP, the government had earlier allowed mills to get the raw sugar processed in other
states.