The BJP has demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the stock market crash. "We demand a JPC probe on the last 21 days of the stock market and the role of Finance Minister P Chidambaram," Kirit Somayya, head of the BJP's investor forum, said today. |
"This crash has been as bad as the crash which happened during Harshad Mehta's time," he added. |
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He also asked the government to "declare the truth" about Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) in the country. "A lot of investment is flowing in through the PN route, which is a worrying trend since one does not really know whose money it is," he said. |
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Somayya called into question the fact that the finance minister had advised small investors to keep investing when the stock market was crashing. |
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"We also want to know how much investment has Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) done in the last 10 days," he said. |
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Meanwhile, the BJP has demanded a special mid-term economic survey by June-end from the government in order to determine the economic forecast for the country, especially in view of the rise in the repo rate and reverse repo by the Reserve Bank of India yesterday. |
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"The raising of the repo and reverse repo rate by 0.25 per cent by the RBI shows that the government is worried about inflation getting out of hand," said BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar. |
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"Ever since the UPA government has come to power, interest rates have been going up, buying power has been going down, and prices of essential commodities have been sky-rocketing," he said. |
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"We want to know what the government really predicts for the economy, therefore we demand a special mid-term economic survey," he said. "The government should also unveil a road map for correcting the situation," he added. |
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"The credit account deficit has also ballooned, the gap between imports and exports is growing at almost $ 4 billion per month. This is enough to neutralise all the benefits of an 8 per cent growth rate," he said. |
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"When the NDA was in the power there was a surplus in the import-export ratio," he said. |
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