UPA government is in ICU: Joshi

VARANASI: The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was "in an intensive care unit breathing its last", Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Murli Manohar Joshi said on Tuesday.

"UPA's failure to arrest inflation and find an amicable way out of the nuclear deal stand-off is proving to be a major burden on the economy and people of India," Joshi told reporters here. He said the government was "in coma".

Joshi is on a two-day tour of Varanasi.

While the inflation rate shot up to 11.05 percent for the week ended June 7, a 13-year high, Joshi claimed it actually was "much more than 15 percent" and the benchmark used by the government to determine it was incorrect.

"UPA is cheating Indians by calculating the inflation rate on basis of the Wholesale Price Index," he said. He added that the Consumer Price Index was the true barometer of inflation trends in any economy.

The former central minister said the government should have worked hard on stepping up oil exploration in the country that would have helped meet spiralling global petroleum prices.

"Slashing taxes on oil could prove to be an effective step in controlling inflation but the UPA is hardly giving heed to any people friendly policy," Joshi stated.