West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee slams Centre on price rise

West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today slammed the Centre for its "failure" to check price rise and said despite assurances inflation remained unchecked.

"The more they are saying it will come down, the more prices are skyrocketing. Last month Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee told me don't worry, prices will come down, but there was no let up," Bhattacharjee told a public meeting here.

"I asked him what are you doing when prices of essential commodities are going up throughout the country," he said.

The state government, he said, could not fix the price of any commodity. "If we decide that onion has to be sold at Rs10 a kg, onion will go elsewhere."

Bhattacharjee said, "We have to take the fight to Delhi and force the government to change its policy."