Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Monday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for using rocketing onion prices to its advantage and politicising the issue ahead of the Assembly elections.
Slamming the Opposition parties for resorting to “political gimmicks” and selling onion at a lower rate, Dikshit said, “One political party has opened four outlets and another party, which is trying to be a political party, opened two outlets. These political parties are making political gimmicks to gain political mileage.” Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP has also started selling the staple in some localities at Rs 40 per kg, while the Delhi Government is selling it for Rs 50 or Rs 55 per kg at over 1,000 points across the city.
“We are not selling onions just to earn votes. We are selling it at reasonable rates as a duty of the Government. We are not politicising the issue. The Government is doing everything possible to help the people,” Dikshit said. The Chief Minister stated that there is a misconception regarding the onion-crisis in the national Capital. The first thing is that the crisis is not only in Delhi, but in the entire country. Even in onion-producing States, the price is quiet high. Dikshit stated that Delhi is not an agriculture-producing State; hence, it has to depend on other States for vegetables and other commodities.”There is no scarcity of onions in Delhi. The staple is available across the city at 1,000 points. Even on Monday, the availability was 3,200 tonnes against the demand of 1,000 tonnes,” she said.
Dikshit said her government was making all efforts to bring down onion price. “The BJP Government was defeated in 1998 due to high onion prices. They (BJP) think it will happen to us. What will happen to us (Congress Government), will be known after the election,” she said. “The BJP Government fell because it did not try to help the people. It did not make any intervention to stabilise the onion price,” the Chief Minister said. BJP was voted out of power in 1998 in Delhi following spiralling onion prices. The Assembly polls in Delhi are slated for November. The outlets arranged by the city Government has been selling onions around at the rate of Rs 45 per kg. With enhanced arrival expected, the rates may vary between Rs 35 to Rs 40 per kg by Tuesday. The Government expects the rates would stabilise soon and may hover between Rs 30 to Rs 35 per kg.