New Delhi: The Congress party has identified price rise as a major issue that it can use to counter the Central government and claimed on Thursday that the opposition party’s drive against inflation will go on. The nationwide campaign had been launched by Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on March 31 to flag the issue of price rises affecting the lives of common people.
The Congress had been demanding a debate over the issue in Parliament but was upset as it could not be done after the government decided to adjourn the Parliament’s budget session sine die on Thursday, two days ahead of the schedule.
"We started our national campaign against price rise on March 31. Today also our state units are protesting in capitals and districts. We are doing our best to redress peoples' woes but the central government is not ready to discuss the issue," the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Malikarjun Kharge told reporters after the Parliament’s budget session was adjourned sine die, two days ahead of the schedule. "Our fight against price rise will go on," he said.
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Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “we are trying to build pressure on the government over price rise. They did not discuss the issue in Parliament but can’t escape the problem outside the House.”
Both Kharge and Chowdhury said that the issue had been discussed in the business advisory committees of the two houses of parliament and as a follow up the debate should have been held. Chowdhury charged that the government had earlier agreed to a debate on price rise as it thought it would control the situation but backtracked when it realized the problem was getting bigger.
"Petrol prices have been increased over 10 times in the past 12 days. It has become like a daily feature. The prices of cooking gas too have been hiked. Besides, the food items, fertilizers, and drugs have also become costly. This is hitting the common man hard,” said Kharge and Chowdhury.
According to Kharge, the government argued that since the opposition had discussed the union budget and the supplementary demands for grants in both the houses, there was a need for a separate debate over price rise.
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Chowdhury said the opposition understood that the prices of fuels were going up internationally due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war but cited finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that the government was buying discounted oil from Russia.
Kharge noted that the international crude prices had risen during the previous UPA government also but the then regime had subsidized the products to provide relief to the common man.
