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Kerala opposition protests price rise

By IANS

Thiruvananthapuram : Leader of opposition Oommen Chandy and several top opposition leaders courted arrest here Saturday after staging a protest in front of the state secretariat against the failure of the Kerala government to arrest the price rice.

“We ruled for five years till 2006 and not even once the then opposition, who rules now, protested against the price rise. It was because we took adequate steps and made the right intervention whenever required,” said Chandy addressing a gathering of opposition activists.

He said when his party stepped down in 2006 the price of one kilogram of rice was Rs nine as against Rs 20 now.

Chandy said the Food and Supplies minister C. Divakaran is finding the going tough and his problems have been compounded because of the unfriendly attitude of Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, who is unwilling to help Divakaran release adequate funds.

“We intervened on time to check the price rise. There were times when we pumped in Rs 100 million for market intervention, which enabled savings of Rs.1 billion for the people of Kerala,” he said.

Divakaran, however, hoped that the price rice would be brought down by Re 0.50.

But the association of rice dealers said they would not be able to bring down the price of rice any further because even a Re 0.50 reduction would mean huge losses for them.

Yesterday, top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party had courted arrest on the same issue.