The Congress is planning a tit-for-tat for the BJP over the price rise issue. Ahead of the Budget Session next week, the party will conduct a nationwide protest demonstration over the issue, which was one of the reasons to catapult Narendra Modi to the highest office of the country. The party said it will agitate across India and will not hesitate from even holding a bandh.
Senior party leader Shakeel Ahmad accused Modi of “misguiding” people during the poll campaign by claiming that he would “solve all the problems” if voted to power. His comments came a day after the petrol price was hiked by Rs1.69 and diesel by 50 paise per litre.
“Prices of petrol, diesel, gas cylinder have gone up and there has been a hike in train fares after Modi became Prime Minister. Not even a single commodity has become cheaper,” he said adding the “upward trend” in the prices of food items in the last one month was a matter of concern. He appealed to the NDA Government to take all measures to control inflation as the time of “rhetoric” was over.
The party has directed the Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled States and General Secretaries-incharge of the States to deal with price rise with some immediate and time-bound action. In order to counter inflation argument by the BJP-ruled States, the Congress-governed States will have to invoke the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 to deal sternly with hoarding, black-marketing and profiteering, it has directed.
“Chronic offenders would be detained under the Prevention of Black-marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act, 1980. Besides, the Congress-ruled states will have to delist ‘fruits and vegetables’ from their Agricultural Produce Markets Committee (APMC). Some of them have already initiated and the farmers have a choice of where to sell their produce and passing the benefit of lower price to consumers,” AICC sources said.
The States will also have to implement reforms of the PDS as stipulated in the National Food Security Act, 2013 and immediately open fair price shops to sell fruits, vegetables and eggs at fair and reasonable prices.