Cong to grapple with onions…

The Congress has to contend with two other factors immediately. First, soaring vegetable prices that have left behind too many wounded Delhiites, who expect much from the new government. Secondly, there is a wide gap between wholesale prices and retail prices. Six months ago, the BJP had won from six of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. At that time, they had no doubts about winning the Assembly polls later in the year.

Then, in August, onions became a luxury at Rs 40 per kg; next month, the vegetable went on to cost Rs 60 per kg, days before the BJP decided to replace Sahib Singh Verma with Sushma Swaraj as Chief Minister. This month they lost the elections. Swaraj, the third BJP chief minister in the five-year stint at governance in Delhi, immediately pointed out that untimely rainfall in onion-producing states destroyed the onion crop. So she announced that onions would be subsidised; she also embarked on the Great Onion Hunt, which didn’t work.

As the BJP Government focused on onions, other vegetables became costlier. Retailers pleaded that this was the only way they could profit. And wholesalers blamed bad crops and retailers.

Several Congressmen say they are lucky now that the vegetable price graph has started dipping just in time for them to frame a new market policy. They also claim they are lucky on the onion front because the Onion and Potato Merchants Association is sympathetic to the Congress.

Rajinder Sharma, general secretary of this association, and a former general secretary of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee, has already promised his bit for the new government.

The Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee, which is a Delhi Government undertaking, is also likely to revamped. There will be five new MLAs in the committee’s board a mandatory requirement. And their opinion may ultimately free the Congress of the BJP’s excess baggage. Because the committee functions as an intermediary between the farmer and the Azadpur wholesaler.