Bangalore, Dec 28 (IANS) The Communist Party of India (CPI) Monday called for a people’s movement against steep rise in food prices and “anti-poor” policies of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.
“There is an urgent need for mobilising people against the unprecedented rise in food prices and the total failure of the UPA government in controlling them to bring relief to the masses,” CPI national secretary D. Raja told reporters here.

In a resolution adopted at its national council meeting here, the party held the central government responsible for the “irrational” price rise in essential commodities, especially food items.

“The UPA-2 government has been pursuing economic policies, which are anti-poor and anti-people. The relentless food price rise is the most burning issue. If the food inflation surged 20 points in a week, the retail price of rice shot up by 51 percent and that of other essential commodities by a whopping 80 percent and even 100 percent,” Raja said, citing the resolution.

As part of its mass movement, the CPI and other Left parties will hold a national rally in March in New Delhi during the budget session of Parliament to compel the UPA government to bring down the food prices.

“Though we gave suggestions to strengthen and universalise the public distribution system (PDS) for providing succour to the people below the poverty line (BPL), the UPA government proved thoroughly incapable of controlling the situation. It should accept its failure and take urgent steps to check the trend,” the resolution said.

Accusing the government of lacking political will to deal with the situation, Raja said the government also failed to curb speculation in food trade and suspend forward trading, leading to a demand-supply mismatch, unchecked export of food articles and setting up of an unhindered market economy.

“What is shameful, the country has to resort to import of rice after about 20 years. The food security is gone and the PDS has collapsed in many states except in a few, including Kerala. The monetary measures to tame the price rise have also failed. The government’s argument that high growth rate is associated with high price is untenable,” Raja asserted.

Demanding firm action against hoarders and speculators and making the Essential Commodities Act more stringent, the party called for eliminating forward trading and prevent export of food articles.

Criticising the increase in issue price by the central government putting additional burden on state governments, the resolution called for its immediate withdrawal.