BJP pitches price war against Cong

Vijay Deo Jha | Ranchi

RANCHI | Monday, February 8, 2010

A day after the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held meeting with the Chief Ministers over price hike in New Delhi, the BJP put out its gloves off and delivered punch on the nose of the Congress at a public rally in Ranchi on Sunday.

“Manmohan Singh’s meeting and his proposal to form the group of the Chief Ministers to control price hike are an attempt to divert the attention of the people for the price hike,” the BJP National General Secretary Mukthar Abbas Naqvi addressed the people during a rally at Harmu Ground on Sunday.

It was a motley crowd of nearly ten thousand which had trekked from different parts of Jharkhand despite a call for 72 hour bandh given by the CPI (Maoist) starting from Sunday

Naqvi accused the Union Agriculture Minister for his irresponsible statements. “Now, Pawar has been advising people to reduce the consumption of sugar and cereals. Why does not he distribute poison to the poor so that they finally get rid of pain and hunger,” he said.

Naqvi continued to tirade the Congress and hit hard at Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi.

“The only thing that mother and son can do is the promise to write letter to Manmohan Singh to control the price. There job is over,” he said and reminded that he was reminding the Congress not to further aggravate the agony of the people.

People of Jharkhand have been facing scarcity of the LPG gas. Naqvi termed artificial and blamed the Central Congress government for creating scarcity. “It is because the people of Jharkhand rejected the Congress in the Parliamentary and assembly election and the Congress wants to teach the people a lesson,” he said.

Addressing anti-price hike rally the deputy chief minister and former BJP president Raghuwar Das announced to exempt some of the essential food commodities from the perview of Value Added Tax. Blaming the wrong economic policy of the Congress government he alleged that both Prime Minister and Pawar have failed to control the price hike.

The BJP MP from Jamshedpur Arjun Munda announced the party would raise the issue of price hike during the session of the parliament in the coming days.