Even as the Opposition NDA and Left parties are set to enforce a nationwide bandh on Monday to protest against the hike in prices of petroleum products,the government has ruled out any rollback. The NDA on Sunday also slammed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,questioning his competence as an economist to deal with the situation. The entire leadership of the BJP along with other Opposition parties is set to hit the streets on Monday. The CPM,which has also given the bandh call along with Left allies and a group of smaller Opposition parties,said the shutdown should serve as a warning to the government so that it does not burden the people. NDA leaders on Sunday also met at working chairman L K Advanis residence to plan out a series of agitations against price rise in the days to come. The meeting,attended by Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley,Leaders of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively,also decided to corner the government over the issue during the monsoon session beginning later this month. On the eve of the bandh,said to be unprecedented due to participation of almost all Opposition parties,Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee made it clear that there would be no rollback in prices. There is no question of a rollback, Mukherjee said in Kolkata. Mukherjee added that it was for the political parties to decide on the mode of protest. I am not interested if anyone is calling a bandh or not. What I can tell you. it is for the political parties to decide what mode of protest they will take, he said. The NDA,meanwhile,trained its guns at the Prime Minister. Either the economic wizards in the government,such as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia,are nowhere as competent as claimed by the Congress,or that the government has succumbed once more to the pressure of greedy MNCs that control the bulk of international oil trade. If the government admits its inability to roll back prices and control inflation,it has no business to cling on to power, the NDA noted. After the NDA meeting,Advani said: This may be the first time in the history of Indias politics that almost all political parties will participate in a Bharat Bandh. He also noted that though the Congress had been talking of espousing the cause of the common man since 2004,prices have been on the rise. Referring to an advertisement in newspapers by the Petroleum Ministry claiming that a strike would not bring down prices of petroleum products,Advani said,Even we do not claim that prices will come down due to Bharat Bandh. the solution lies in the hands of the government. Unfortunately,there is no indication that the government has a solution. NDA has made elaborate plans for the bandh. While BJP president Nitin Gadkari,JD(U) president Sharad Yadav,and Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur will lead the strike in the capital,Swaraj will be in Bhopal,and Jaitley and party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi will lead demonstrations in Lucknow. Among other leaders,Venkaiah Naidu will lead protests in Hyderabad,Ananth Kumar in Bangalore,Gopinath Munde in Mumbai and Vasundhara Raje in Jaipur. All MPs and MLAs have been asked to hold protest demonstrations in their respective constituencies.
