Price rise: TUs to start fill-the-jail campaign

Holding agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and the United Progressive Alliance responsible for price rise, the Communist Party of India said on Friday trade unions, including Congress-affiliated Indian National Trade Union Congress, across the country would launch a fill-the-jail campaign on March 5.

"The new liberalised economic policy being pursued by the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre is responsible for the price rise," CPI general secretary A B Bardhan said.

"It is not only Pawar and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, rather the entire Congress is responsible for the problem," he told reporters in Patna.

For the first time in 25 years, all the trade unions, including INTUC and Bharatiya Janata Party-affiliated Bhartiya Majdoor Sangh have forged an ideological link on the issue of price rise and food security.

These TUs would launch a fill-the-jail campaign on March five across the country, the CPI leader said.

However, the state governments also cannot escape the responsibility for the problems as they have failed to initiate effective steps for implementing the provisions of the Essential Commodities' ACT and check hoarding, he said.

Four left parties -- CPI, Communist Party of India-Marxist, Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party -- would also hold a rally in New Delhi on March 12 against the price rise, Bardhan said, adding that more than 500,000 people from Bihar would participate in the rally.