Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari has said the policies of the Central government and speculation in essential commodities through commodities exchanges are responsible for price rise and inflation in the country.
Addressing a ‘Meet-the-Press’ programme at the Press Club here on Friday, the BJP president said multinationals, corporates and speculators profited from speculative and manipulative transactions in the commodity exchanges.
A joint parliamentary committee should be appointed to investigate who benefitted from the trade and which politicians aided them.
The committee should also inquire why sugar (49 lakh tonnes) was exported in 2008-09 at Rs.12.50 a kg and imported recently at Rs.40 a kg.
Mr. Gadkari said the actual delivery of essential commodities at the commodity exchanges was less than 1 per cent of their turnover of Rs.4.5 lakh in 2009. This meant that 99 per cent of the trade in items such as wheat, sugar, chana, jeera and potato was speculative. Neither the farmer nor the consumer benefitted from that. “We do not need commodity exchange. That should be scrapped,” he said.
Mr. Gadkari said manipulative export and import of sugar, wheat and other items, manipulative assessment and announcement of production and shortages, failure to create buffer stocks, manipulation and mismanagement of government agencies and failure of economic policies were among the reasons for inflation.
He said his party did not share the view of its ally, the Shiv Sena, in Maharashtra on who belonged to Mumbai. Mumbai as well as Srinagar should be open to all Indians. “Will the Congress and the CPI(M) dare to say that Srinagar should also be open to all Indians?” he asked.
Mr. Gadkari stressed that the BJP was neither anti-Muslim nor anti-minorities. “We are against terrorism. The BJP was being misunderstood about its stand on secularism while those who supported people like People’s Democratic Party leader Abdul Nasir Maudany claimed themselves to be secularists,” he said.
As president of the party, he proposed to concentrate on organising the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, minorities and other weaker sections and nurturing professional groups as ‘Friends of the BJP.’ He hoped to improve the party’s position in Kerala.
Mr. Gadkari said the BJP was opposed to the use of electronic voting machines in polling.
If the Election Commission wanted to continue its use, there should be a paper backup.
Earlier, Mr. Gadkari was given a reception on his arrival at the airport here by BJP supporters.
He will address a meeting of State office-bearers of the party and a public rally against price rise on Saturday.
