Salient points in the Address by
Shri L.K. Advani
Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)

On the occasion of NDA MPs’ Human Chain around Parliament
to protest against price rise on

24 April, 2008

Members of Parliament belonging to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) today organised a Human Chain around the main building of Parliament House to protest against the UPA government’s abject failure to control the galloping prices of essential commodities and services. This protest action is part of a continuing countrywide agitation against rising prices.

The Congress-led UPA government, which completes four years in office next month, has failed on all fronts. However, its failure is most glaring in an area that affects the common man the most, and on a daily basis — namely, the prices of essential commodities and services. The family budgets of not only the poor but even the middle classes have been badly eroded by the steep rise in the prices of cereals, pulses, vegetables, edible oil, sugar, milk, fruits and meat.

This has forced the poor, whose nutritional intake is already at precariously low levels, to consume less food. At the same time, several food items have either vanished or their consumption has been drastically scaled down in middle-class households. Thus, crores of Indian families are now groaning under the crisis of food security, owing to the total and abject failure of the UPA government to anticipate, plan and check inflationary pressures in the economy.

Besides food, the cost of all other essential requirements such as clothing, shelter, transportation, medicine, etc. has also shot up during the four years of the UPA government. The growing cost of education has meant that millions of young people, belonging to poor and middle-classes, cannot fulfill their dream of living a better life. The soaring prices of cement and steel, combined with higher interest rates on bank loans, have meant that millions of middle-class families can no longer dream of having their own homes. The slowdown in housing construction, as also in manufacturing, has resulted in further increase in already high levels of unemployment.

The runaway rise in prices is only partially captured in the officially declared rate of inflation of 7.41% at the end of March 2008, which itself is at a three-year high. Responsible sections of the media have reported that even this figure is a gross under-declaration of the actual rate of inflation. Neither Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh nor Finance Minister Shri P. Chidambaram has so far come clean on charges that the government is fudging inflation statistics.

The failure of the government to control prices is worse compounded by its apathy, insensitivity and lack of accountability. The Finance Minister, replying to the debate in Parliament on price rise, blamed all and sundry, except the government. By calling price rise a “global phenomenon”, spokesmen of the Congress party have sought to belittle the seriousness of the problem that their government has created.

The situation in the country is such that, with the fruits of economic growth bypassing the common people, and with even basic food items becoming unaffordable, the poorest sections of Indian society are finding their very right to life threatened. The NDA is deeply concerned at this unprecedented situation and holds the Congress party responsible for it, which, if unaddressed, could cause widespread starvation and hunger-related deaths in the country. Some perceptive observers have described it as a “Silent Tsunami” in the making.

What is required is massive and effective governmental intervention to ensure that poorest Indians get food and other basic necessities of life in adequate quantities at highly subsidized rates. Doing so is not “populism”, but discharge of the moral and Constitutional duties by the government. I would like to call it the equivalent of “affirmative action” in the economic sphere. The UPA government has totally failed in discharging this duty by the poor.

The NDA will raise its powerful voice of protest against this unfolding crisis both within and outside Parliament. Today’s Human Chain by NDA MPs testifies to our determination.