Click to play videoNew Delhi: As prices soar across the board, politics are now heating up. As expected, the Left and the NDA are exerting tremendous pressure on the UPA government.
Inflation has reached such a point that even the steps that the Government took – scrapping import duty on oil, cutting customs duty on butter and ghee and banning export of basmati rice and pulses – are proving to be insufficient.
The Government is now targetting the steel sector and is asking manufacturers to cut prices immediately. Iron ore exporters, though, were let off with a veiled threat that the industry needs to be sensitive to inflation woes.
“They are with the Government in containing inflation. They'll go back, discuss and come back to it,” said Steel Secretary, R S Pandey.
On the political front, too, the UPA government is suffering heavy casualties. Under attack from the Left and the Right, the Government is also considering a ban on commodities trading across 25 agri products, including essential commodities like soya, maize and gram, something that the Left has been asking for since a while
"If they do it, then very good. I mean, that's what we want them to. We have been asking for this for a long time,” said a smiling Sitaram Yechury.
Experts, meanwhile, differ on whether this is a crisis caused by shortage of food grain in the domestic market, whether it is a distribution problem or is it because of hoarding.
The Government, for its part, is getting very little breathing space and it is almost becoming an embarrassing situation for the noted economist trio of the PM Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia. The NDA is taking advantage of the situation and is not behind in slamming the UPA
"It’s the worst kind of betrayal of people. Rising costs would prove to be costly to the Congress party in the days ahead,” said party leader, Venkaiah Naidu.
In the end, inflation and price rise affect everyone. Whatever decision the Government takes, it would obviously keep one eye on the impending elections and would be hoping that the slew of measures that it has announced would have an impact soon.
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