By IANS,
Bangalore : The Congress Saturday blamed hoarders for the rising prices of food grains and other essential commodities and said the states had been directed to raid their stocks.
“Hoarders are responsible for rising prices and the states have been directed to conduct raids on them,” Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters here.
“Prices will come down in about three months,” he predicted.
The rising prices, reflected in a three-and-a-half-year high rate of inflation at 7.57 percent for the week ending April 19, is one of the major issues dominating the political parties’ campign for this month’s assembly polls in Karnataka.
On Friday Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani told a public meeting near Bangalore that the Congress-led central government was no longer in a position to control inflation and was facing defeat whenever elections would be held for parliament.
Sibal said: “It is unfortunate that BJP is politicising hunger. We know BJP is hungry for power.”
He said when prices of essential commodities soared during the rule of BJP-led National Democratic Alliance between 1999 and 2004, the Congress had not politicised the issue.