Press Statement Released by Shri Prakash Javedkar
National Spokesperson BJP and MP

The rate of inflation reaching 7.57% today points to the fact that Congress led UPA government has completely failed in stopping the price rise. Today the reality has come to the fore that price rise cannot be stopped only by controlling demands or through financial exercises and that imports are not increased only by reducing import duties and exports cannot be reduced by levying export duties; exercise only on papers would not mitigate the crisis. Bharatiya Janata Party demands that the government should wake up now by recognizing the grave crisis at hand and take appropriate measures to bring relief to the common man. Wheat, rice, pulses, oil and sugar should be made available to everyone on highly subsidized prices in the ration shops. Along with this, the black marketing of cooking gas and fertilizers should be stopped. The cement and steel cartel should be effectively ended and new policy on diesel and petrol should be announced. Only then prices may be controlled.

BJP’s national strike on the slogan, “Stop Price rise or leave” was highly successful today. Millions of people participated in the Protest Demonstrations in thousand of towns and cities. Human Chains were formed in hundreds of places. More than twenty thousand markets in the country remained closed.

Strike was completely successful in Gujarat. In all the towns including Ahmadabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot, Human Chains were formed around the central government offices. In Kerala, 12- Hour Bandh was successful. Shops remained closed and processions were taken out in every town. In Hyderabad, Rajbhavan was picketed and Protest Demonstrations were organized in many districts. In Madhya Pradesh, the markets remained closed in all the towns including Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore and Jabalpur and different fronts of BJP demonstrated at various places. Thousands of people participated in the Human Chain formed in Gandhi Park, Dehradun. In Raipur and Tamil Nadu Human Chains would be formed in the evening. Strike was successful in Uttar Pradesh. All the shops in Bareilly and Meerut remained closed. Human Chains were formed in front of the Vidhan Sabha in Lucknow and in Gorakhpur, Mathura and Faizabad. In Orissa, many markets in Bhubaneshwar, Fulbani, Katak and Puri remained closed. In Delhi protests were organized at Vikas Marg and Chandni Chowk and all the major markets in Karol Bagh, Patel Nagar, Chandni Chowk, Vikas Marg, Janakpuri, Lajpatnagar and Sarojini Nagar remained closed.

In Assam, markets remained closed in Guwahati and Human Chains were effective in Tinsukia. Partests were organized in Manipur also. In Tamil Nadu, markets remained closed in many places including Kanyakumari, Koimbatur and Nilgiri and 600 activists were arrested. A huge Human Chain was formed in Patna and in West Bengal the Human Chain programme was successful in 256 places. In Haryana, a big protest was held in Bhiwani. The markets in Kurukshetra, Rohtak and Sirsa remained closed and in Faridabad the lawyers demonstrated in the court itself. In Himachal Pradesh, all the markets remained closed in Mandi, Solan, Hamirpur, Dharamshala, Kullu and other places.

In Karnataka, rallies of Shri Lal Krishna Advani are taking place in Chamrajnagar, Mysore and Anekal. Even while the election campaign is underway, these rallies have been given the shape of anti-price rise movement.

It proved to be an effective movement in terms of expressing people’s discontent in a democracy. If government fails to take effective measures by taking lesson from this, this movement would move ahead.

(Shyam Jaju)
Office-Incharge

Translation of original Hindi draft