Allies Left and RJD say price rise the reason why Congress had to pay

The RJD leader — who regaled her yesterday with his Budget one-liners — was quoted by his spokesman MP Ramkripal Yadav as having told the Congress President: “Poor people do not understand what is GDP growth. Our concern is the price of pulses.”

“He told her that rising prices is one reason for the Congress’s failure in elections,” said Yadav, who was part of the delegation.

Promptly echoing this was the Left. “The Congress needs to learn its lessons. With the kind of policies that they pursue, they could not have expected anything better,” said CPM’s Sitaram Yechury.

The party is going to hear more of such a chorus as the election result gets added to the series of recent setbacks: the Maharashtra local poll debacle, the backfired misadventure to dismiss the UP government and the Quattrocchi affair.

In an attempt to pre-empt this looming offensive by an assertive Left, UPA partners and several quarters within the Congress, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the Assembly elections are not a referendum on the Centre. “Let me say that winning and losing are part of democratic process,” Singh said but admitted that inflation was indeed a concern. “I do recognise that inflation is a problem. The government is trying to tackle it as best as it can,” the PM said.

“There is no question of referendum against the Central government. These elections are part of local elections…This election has no bearing on the Centre,” Singh said.

With the Union Budget just a night away, Singh asserted that the government was doing all it could to contain inflation without compromising on the growth of agriculture and industry. “We are trying to control inflation while stimulating the growth impulses in our economy because that is the only way you can create more jobs for our youth, for our young people,” the PM said adding that the challenge was to “tackle inflation without hurting the growth of agricultural and industrial economy.”

It’s not going to be easy, he admitted. “Everywhere you find there is a trade-off between inflation and growth.”

Restive allies, however, had little patience for economics today, aware that decreasing Congress clout isn’t good news in the second half of the UPA’s term. After his meeting with Sonia, Lalu met the PM and demanded that forward trading in all essential commodities be stopped forthwith, that MSP be increased and strict measures taken to check hoarding.

The Left has also conveyed to the government that stopping of forward trading is a “non-negotiable demand.” Swords are already out within the Congress, too. Leaders who have been warning about inflation in several CWC meetings over the last six months will now be back with a we-told-you-so vengeance. Their target will be some ministers and some advisors to the Congress president. It seems the cruel month of April — when UP goes to polls — has set in early.