Trust every session of Parliament to hold a heated debate on price rise without anything concrete coming out of the verbal combat between the Opposition and the Treasury Benches! While Wednesday saw a lively debate in the Rajya Sabha on the issue, Thursday was no different as the lok Sabha witnessed bitter sparring between the two sides on price rise. The debate took place amid free flow of jibes, barbs and banter that hardly did anything to address the issue that affects the common man the most.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who stole the limelight in the lS last week by stealing a nap during a discussion on the plight of Dalits in Gujarat, actively participated in the debate and referring to the rise in prices of pulses, he taunted Prime Minister Narendra Modi by raising the slogan “Arhar Modi.”
However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was quick to point to the double-digit inflation during the UPA regime. Making a brief intervention in the debate on the price rise in the country, Jaitley said, “The Government had inherited double-digit inflation from the UPA Government which was hit by scams and policy paralysis.Any form of bluster is not a substitute for statistics.”
It’s a different matter that in the past, Congress leaders have repeatedly raised the chant of “Arhar Modi”, playing on the BJP’s popular election slogan of “Har har Modi” in their speeches, and Jaitley has also given the same argument for the last two years to defend the Government’s performance on price rise.
When Rahul pointed to “corruption” as one of the reasons for rise in prices of pulse, Jaitley once again responded with a counter punch, saying that corruption scandals that have emerged till now are those involving the UPA and not the NDA. As nearly all Opposition leaders talked about skyrocketing pulse prices, Jaitley said in a lighter vein, “Everybody in this House seems to be going to the market everyday”.
The left also played the same old record. Initiating the debate, CPI(M) leader P Karunakaran lamented that the neo-liberal and corporate-friendly polices of both the Congress and the BJP were to blame for the economic chaos in the country and the price rise.
“Price rise is a symptom and inflation is a disease”, he said, adding unless the Government deals with inflation it would not be possible to contain price rise.
With Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections round the corner, Dharmendra Yadav (SP) said farmers have not received any benefit from price rise, adding that there did not seem to be much difference between the Congress and BJP Governments as under both of them farmers have been weakened. Jaiprakash Narayan Yadav (RJD) warned the Government about the “tsunami of price rise” and its consequences.
If Rahul was all bluster and banter, he got it back in good measure from the BJP. Taking a swipe at Rahul, BJP MP Poonam Mahajan wondered how the ‘yuvraj’ (prince) did not know about the price situation when the UPA was in power from 2004-2014. “One day he (Rahul ) was having tea here and another day at Kalavati’s home. It was nothing but political tourism.”
In his brief speech, which lasted around 16 minutes, the Congress vice-president focussed on attacking the Prime Minister for his “inability” to control prices of essential commodities by citing his “false” promises of bringing down prices made during election campaigns.
“During elections, Modiji had said ‘make me a chowkidar’ (watchman). Now, there is theft of dal under the very nose of the chowkidar. But the chowkidar has not uttered a word. He is mum. ... Now he has become a big person. leave that job of chowkidari to the Congress,” Gandhi said.
“You may make as many hollow promises as you want, but give us a date by when the prices of dal will come down,” Rahul said. listing the prices of vegetables and pulses, he said in 2014, the price of tomato was Rs 18, which has now shot up to Rs 55. Urad and tur dal, priced at Rs 70 and Rs 75 respectively in February 2014, have gone up to Rs 160 and Rs 180 this month, he said.
Accusing the Government of waiving off Rs 52,000 crore of corporates, Gandhi asked what benefit the Government had given to the farmers and housewives from the saving of Rs 2-lakh crore it had made from the slump in crude oil prices.
Recalling Modi’s speech at a poll rally in Himachal Pradesh in February 2014, Rahul said that while attacking the then UPA Government over price rise Modi had said that ‘ma aur bachche raat raat rote hain, aasoon pee ke sote hain’ (hungry mothers and children cry themselves to sleep at night). “What a dialogue,” Gandhi said thrice, taking a dig at Modi who was not present in the House.
He said there was a huge gap between the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 45 given for tur dal to the farmers as its price in the market was Rs 75. Even though now, the MSP has risen to Rs 50, the price of pulses in the market has shot up to Rs 180. “So, there is a gap of Rs 130 during the NDA Government’s rule. Where is this Rs 100 going,” Gandhi asked.
“People in villages are chanting a new slogan, ‘Arhar Modi, Arhar Modi, Arhar Modi”, Rahul said winding up his speech.
In his defence of the Government, Jaitley said the NDA inherited a policy paralysis from the UPA and commentators often said ‘I’ in the BRICS nations will fall out. From that point, the BJP-led Government had turned around the economy, he said.
Stating that India has potential to achieve higher growth rates, he said additional resources raised by it had helped the country become one of the fastest-growing economies of the world and back of the envelop calculations being done by the Congress can be misleading.
“This is a topic of statistics and not sloganeering... When the UPA left the Government, the economy was in a critical state and it is but natural for any contesting candidate to say that after getting elected he would try to bring down inflation. No one should have any objection to that,” he said.
Jaitley said the monthly statistics show that pulses inflation is coming down and asked Rahul Gandhi not to look for corruption angle in the rise of prices of pulses, which he said occurred due to rise in costs globally besides two consecutive years of drought.
He said the UPA had left the economy in a dire state, with Consumer price Index (CPI) and food inflation at double digit, WPI inflation around 6-7 per cent and growth prospects were limited.