Price Rise Rally: Gadkari Accuses UPA of Betraying People’s Trust
Addressing a rally protesting against price rise, BJP president Nitin Gadkari has accused the Congress-led UPA government of betraying the people’s trust, said media reports.
Gadkari, who fainted after addressing the rally, said that price rise had become synonym to the Congress’ coming to power, reports said.
“Whenever the Congress comes to power, there is rise in prices of essential commodities,” he was quoted as saying while reminding Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi of their promise that food prices would be brought down within the 100 days of coming to power.
“But the poor people are committing suicide,” he was quoted as saying during the rally held at a time when the UPA government completes one year of its second consecutive stint in power.
He blamed the government for following ‘wrong economic’ policies and said that he asked 14 questions to the prime minister on inflation but even a single reply was not given by the ruling party, reports said.
“Nobody in the Congress is in a position to give reply to these questions. They have wrong economic policies and are providing bad governance,” Ghadkari was quoted as saying
Revealing that food stocks were rotting in warehouses, the BJP president accused the government of considerately ignoring the storage so as to sell it to liquor manufacturers at cheaper prices later, said reports.
Other leaders who addressed the rally included leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, her Rajya Sabha counterpart Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and L K Advani.
In his address, Advani alleged that prices of essential commodities went up between 100 to 200 percent since the UPA first came to power six years ago, reports said.
“This has happened because of bad management and corruption,” he was quoted as saying.
Advani termed the rally the biggest the party had organized, saying, “In one way, it is a rally that has beaten the records of all previous (BJP) rallies.”
BJP activists later marched towards parliament braving the scorching sun in Delhi.
The rally hit traffic movement across central Delhi with Ring Road, Mathura Road, India Gate, Tilak Marg, Asaf Ali Road, Netaji Subhash Marg, Ranjit Singh Marg, Tolstoy Marg, Sikandra Road, Barakhamba Road, Parliament Street and Ashoka Road being the worst affected.
(Based on internet reports)
