Press Statement issued by Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy,
National Spokesperson, BJP

On Price Rise

The BJP takes serious exception and note to the spiraling prices of essential food items including daily groceries to fuel to edible oils to fruits & vegetables. The wholesale price based inflation index has breached RBI’s comfort zone and risen to 5.92% this week indicating an all time high. The country which still has to tide over the severe bout of inflation spell witnessed in August, 2007 is witnessing another unchecked substantial gallop. At the retail level the situation is grimmer. The average price of sugar has risen by 6 percent, 25 percent for rice, 33 percent for edible oil and while most of the price of house hold items has doubled. All this is in addition to the prices of diesel and petrol having been raised eight times in the tenure of UPA government.

Apparently this is the instant outcome of the so called tom-tommed budget rolled out by Chidrambram recently. The rising inflation with a faltering economy leaves no room for the government to tinker with fiscal policies and worst is yet to come. The government has fallen in its own trap of populism and appeasement. All this is happening while the country is headed first time by a Prime Minister who is an Economist and a Finance Minister who claims to be better then him. The walloping inflation is the gift of the UPA Government to the country in an election year.

On Taslima Nasreen

The hounded departure of Taslima reflects the fundamentalist attitude of the UPA government which has kneeled to the communal and intolerant rhetoric of the fundamentalists. The secular credentials of the Congress led UPA government stands completely shattered as they have connived to the clandestine design of the fundamentalist forces initially putting Taslima under virtual house arrest and subsequently creating a situation of threat and persecution where she had to flee this country fearing death.

The shamble parceling of Taslima by the left front government from Kolkata to Jaipur and subsequently an unceremonious shunting by the UPA government to a secluded undisclosed government custody since November, 2007, which she has called “a Chamber of Death” has tattered the secular constitutional fabric of our country. The UPA government dancing to the tune of fundamentalists coupled with their crusade of appeasement and vote bank politics has tarnished the credentials of the Indian Government on the world forum. Failing to give “asylum” and protection to an individual who is a victim of sadist fundamentalism is a charge which the UPA government must answer and absolve itself. Taslimas exit is nothing short of a National shame. BJP would categorically ask the UPA government and in particular the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukharjee to come clear of the charge made by Taslima that he had “exerted great mental pressure on her” to leave the country.

(Shyam Jaju)
Office Incharge