Price rise robs Opposition of other issues to corner UPA

New Delhi: It seems that the haunting issue of price rise of essential commodities has robbed the opposition parties of other political issues as they are finding it hard to corner the UPA on other issues for there are no takers of other issues either in public or in media. An internal source in the BJP said that the party had studied various issues confronting the nation and came to a conclusion that Congress and the UPA were extremely uncomfortable in facing the inflation issue at present. Congress is on the other hand overtly worried about the unusually high rate of inflation, which is still over 7% mark.

The BJP is aiming at cashing in this situation of fiscal and monetary turbulence, said the source. And, this is precisely the reason why the BJP and its NDA partner JD(U) have been keeping away from other issues, like Indo-US civil nuclear deal, internal security (including naxalism), China-Tibet controversy that have hitherto been on the priority list of the Opposition. Even BJP national spokesperson Prakash Javadekar, when asked as to why the party has been giving same statements over and again, said that "price rise is the issue that is hurting the common and would give us advantage".

A senior JD(U) leader echoed the same sentiment by saying that price rise is the top issue on the agenda of the party and it will be made the key issue in the Karnataka elections. JD(U) president Sharad Yadav had expressed the same view earlier this week, when he said that inflation and food shortage are going together and depriving people of their right to live a decent life.

In the same line, BJP today held a meeting of central office bearers presided over by its national president Rajnath Singh. The party decided to keep the ante on inflation up for some more time and to launch another nationwide agitation on price rise soon. A committee, comprising Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Vijay Goel, Balbir Punj, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Prakash Javadekar has been constituted by the party to finalise the strategy for the agitation, the programme for which will be announced after NDA meet on April 21 in the national capital.

However, the BJP sources tell that even the party feels that if the price situation prevails for long then the hype generated by their leaders might not actually materialise into votes in the upcoming elections this year leading to the climax of Lok Sabha elections next year. But, one section of the party, dominated by party president still sees enough potential in the price rise issue to keep it alive till as far as the general elections in 2009, the sources added.

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