CPM blames Centre for price rise

Patna, Apr 7 (UNI) Expressing concern over price rise of essential commodities, CPI(M) polit bureau member Sitaram Yechuri today urged the Union government to take concrete steps to arrest the rising trend.

''Measures taken so far in this direction are far from adequate,'' he said while inaugurating a convention of peasants, workers and agricultural labourers here.

Mr Yechuri said the Centre's prescription to check price rise was based on the hypothesis that people's purchasing capacity had increased over the years although ground realities suggested otherwise.

''In its bid to reduce the purchasing capacity, the Centre had increased interest rates on loans resulting in retardation of industrialisation process while the measure failed to arrest the price rise trend,'' he added.

''Certain provisions made during the previous NDA regime, like permitting future trading of commodities, was the root cause of price rise and the Centre should scrap such measures to unshackle commodity trade from the clutches of middlemen and speculators,'' he suggested.

On controversies like Nandigram and Singur, Mr Yechuri alleged that Trinmool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee was misleading the people on the issue to extract political mileage.

''More than 12000 farmers are ready to voluntary surrender their land in Nandigram,'' he said and attributed the ongoing disturbances to the presence of 'outsiders'.

Ms Banerjee, who had earlier held the CPI(M) responsible for the lack of industrial growth in West Bengal, had now put up hurdles on setting up of big industries, he pointed out.

Mr Yechuri affirmed that his party was supporting the UPA government at the Centre to keep the communal forces at bay but people would have no option but to put their weight behind the Left parties enabling greater responsibilities for it at the Centre, if the incumbent government failed to mend its ways.

UNI