UPA failed to check inflation: Advani

Indore, Apr 14: Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and former deputy premier LK Advani today accused the Centre's United Progressive Alliance regime of being unsuccessful in checking galloping inflation. “The rise in prices will be raised as a principal issue during the parliamentary session getting underway tomorrow,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader told media persons here at the local airport prior to leaving for the nearby Military Headquarters Of War (MHOW) to take part in a function marking the birth anniversary of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar.

Pointing out that prices of essentials were constantly rising, Advani added that the budgetary announcement vis-a-vis controlling inflation had not fructified. MHOW (Ambedkar Nagar) is Ambedkar's birthplace. He said development alone was not sufficient and honest governance was also required. “A greater quantum of progress should have taken place in free India,'' he said while addressing a public meeting on Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar's philosophy at the latter's birthplace, Military Headquarters Of War (MHOW) in this district on the occasion of Ambedkuar's birth anniversary.

Pointing out that the country's prosperity should not be measured by the number of billionaires, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader added that poverty existed to this day. “Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar are progressing under BJP rule and nobody will label those as 'Bimaru',” Advani claimed. Admitting that an increasing paucity of grain was leading to inflation spiralling globally, he added that India could save itself by providing facilities to farmers. “Peasants are committing suicide in several states but such cases are not taking place in Madhya Pradesh and I congratulate the state government in that regard,” Advani said.

The veteran leader recalled that the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru included die-hard non-Congress opponents Ambedkar and Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in the Cabinet on Mahatma Gandhi's advice and placed Ambedkar in-charge of the law ministry while Mukherji was given the industry portfolio. Advani inaugurated the Dr Ambedkar memorial and unveiled a statue.