Why BJP is silent on rising prices of tur dal: Digvijay Singh

Hyderabad, Oct 20: The Congress today hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on "rising" prices of tur dal and questioned BJP's "silence" now as the party had staged agitations on the issue when UPA was in power.

"Tur dal prices have now risen to more than Rs 200 (per kg). When tur dal prices were ruling at Rs 70-Rs 80 (per kg during the previous UPA rule) Narendra Modiji and the BJP staged agitations in the entire country. Today, the entire BJP is silent," AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh said.

He said the import of 5000 tonnes, as announced by the government, is grossly inadequate in view of the heavy demand. Singh quoted Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as saying that large stocks are lying in ports, but alleged that there are actually none there and termed it "misleading".

Targeting the Prime Minister, he said: "On every small issue, he tweets; (but) on issues of intolerance; on issues of BJP-RSS activists taking their law into their hands, he is quiet; on the issue of Sudheendra Kulkarni's face being smeared with black paint, he is quiet".

Speaking in the context of Dadri lynching and controversial statements of BJP leaders, he said, "My allegation is that all this is happening to hide the failures of the Modi government to mislead the people…to divert the mind of people from core issues of economy, core issues of employment and core issues of black money, by raising such issues".

"The Government of India has completely failed to fulfil its promises and the only agenda they have is to polarise the country on religious lines, create conditions of communalism, destroying the secular fabric of the country," Singh said.

On GST, he said the Standing Committee of Rajya Sabha has raised four critical issues in the bill presented by the NDA government and if they are addressed, the Congress is prepared to support it.

PTI