Opposition unleashes war against price rise, agriculture minister passes the buck.
In a sharp and nuanced attack on agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, the opposition has demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the rise in prices of essential food items, especially sugar.
Leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj minced no words when she referred to Pawar as the “sugar king” of India.
Swaraj said, “We demand a JPC to enquire into the scams in these four food items — rice, wheat, sugar and pulses. It should find out why such decisions [that led to these scams] were taken.”
She lashed out at the government for its failure to take appropriate measures to contain food inflation. She claimed that though there have been adequate quantities of food grains lying at various ports, effective steps were not taken for their transport, which resulted in a huge loss to the exchequer.
She demanded a high level probe into the alleged “sugar scandal”, saying Pawar was responsible for the mess. Since the UPA came to power in 2004, the House has held nine rounds of debate on the issue but prices have gone on rising, Swaraj claimed.
In the Rajya Sabha, the heat was on as leader of opposition in the Upper House Arun Jaitley blamed the lack of co-ordination between various ministries for the high inflation. “It seems prices are giving competition to Sachin Tendulkar,” he said, referring to Tendulkar’s double ton in Wednesday’s ODI in Gwalior.
“The government failed to take up pre-emptive measures to bridge the gap between demand and supply,” said Jaitley. In a rare unanimity seen in the opposition benches in recent times, Brinda Karat of the CPI(M) joined him in blasting the government. “The government is citing the NREGA programme which has prompted demand and a rise in process. I would like to point out that even in a state like Andhra Pradesh where the performance of NREGA is good, no more than 50 days of work has been availed. If one keeps the average size of the family as five, this works out to Rs3 per head. Is this the great spur to demand?” Karat said.
The BJP said it would gherao parliament on April 21 in the second part of the budget session.
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