Thaindian News

New Delhi, Jan 20 (ANI): A high-level Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) delegation led by senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani met Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Wednesday to lodge the party’s protest against the rise in prices of essential commodities.

BJP President Nitin Gadkari, the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, senior party leaders Arun Jaitley, Murli Manohar Joshi and former BJP President Rajnath Singh accompanied Advani to the meeting.

The delegation was supposed to meet Dr Singh on Tuesday, but the meeting was postponed as the leaders had gone to Kolkata to pay their last respect to Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) patriarch Jyoti Basu, who had died earlier in the week.

The BJP delegation submitted a memorandum to Dr Singh on the issue of increasing prices of essential commodities and asked the Central Government to take appropriate action.

Highlighting the plight of farmers in the country, BJP President Gadkari said, the government must check the profits made by private corporate firms and big multinationals.

“Today, the situation of farmers is such that they are not getting enough returns for their produce. But the ones, who are earning profits, are multinationals, manipulative traders and corporates,” said Gadkari.

“Some company’s shares have also gone up more than 100 percent and the government does not seem to have any control over that,” added Gadkari.Senior party leader Advani said the Prime Minister has assured of a full support.

“The Prime Minister assured the delegation that the government would take all necessary measures to control prices and said that apart from what has been mentioned in the memorandum, if there are any other suggestions the BJP would like to convey to the government, he would welcome it,” said Advani.

The BJP has been criticising the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for failing to curb the spiralling prices, especially of food items. (ANI)