New Delhi: With Left parties firm on taking
up an adjournment motion in Parliament on spiralling prices, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today assured them that he would take up the matter with the Prime Minister.
After a meeting with Mukherjee where Left leaders insisted
that they would not relent on their adjournment motion on
price rise, senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told
reporters that he had assured them that he would discuss the
issue with the Prime Minister and "get back to us".
Yechury's senior colleague Basudeb Acharia had given an
adjournment notice in the Lok Sabha, while a notice on the
issue under Rule 168, which entails voting, would be given by
the Left parties in Rajya Sabha tomorrow, the two CPI(M)
leaders said.
Yechury said discussions on the price situation have been
held in the past two sessions and unanimous resolutions passed
earlier "calling upon the government to take all measures to
protect the common man".
"But no action has been initiated so far. Food inflation
has risen to 12 per cent and the overall inflation rate is
escalating exponentially", he said.
As steps to check rising prices, the Left parties are
demanding an end to deregulation of petroleum prices, rollback
of the hikes in petrol prices, ban on forward and speculative
trading on all essential commodities and universalisation of
the public distribution system.
"We want the government to respond to these measures that
we have been suggesting for long," Yechury said, adding that
the Left parties "do not favour disruption of the House but
want discussion on these and other important issues."
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, November 22, 2011, 16:10