Price rise: BJP submits 10 cr signatures to Prez

A delegation of the Bharatiya Janata Party Members of Parliament and senior leaders met President Pratibha Patil on Thursday and submitted a memorandum and crores of signatures as part of its campaign against "abject failure of the UPA government" to control price rise.

"We held a successful Bharat Bandh against price rise some days back. Out MPs and state unit leaders have submitted nearly 10 crore signatures to the President. I can say that we have taken all steps we should take in our role as the main opposition on this issue," BJP Parliamentary party chief L K Advani said after meeting the president.

He insisted that BJP MPs had been actively involved in highlighting this issue in Parliament.

"If you do not call it (price rise) government's failure, then will you call it success? We cannot do more than this on price rise. Now the government has to do the rest (to control prices)," Advani said.

The delegation, which was led by BJP president Nitin Gadkari, consisted of leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, her counterpart in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and other senior leaders like Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi and Gopinath Munde.

The voluminous signatures were carried in a small truck to Rashtrapati Bhawan by the party.

The BJP, along with other opposition parties, has not allowed the Parliament to function for the last three days demanding discussion and voting on the issue of price rise.

Gadkari said the government had failed to keep its 2009 election promise of controlling prices of essential commodities within 100 days of coming to power.

"In the memorandum to the president, we have demanded that food articles should be removed from the Commodities Exchange Forward Trading List and a buffer stock created to ensure food security," Gadkari said.

He alleged that Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar had failed to keep foodgrains safe and these were rotting in godowns.

"Wrong economic policies and bad governance by this government are responsible for price rise," Gadkari said.

Other demands made in the memorandum are taking steps to bring down prices of wheat, rice, sugar, dal and green vegetables, action against hoarders, black-marketeers, multinational companies and corporate manipulators and giving top priority to agro-economy besides adequate funds for agriculture development and infrastructure.

Proper management of foodgrains and horticulture storage and full-fledged storage plan for next 25 years and changing the present economic policy which is "robbing farmers and looting the common man" besides providing food security are some other demands.