Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today accused the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre of being "solely responsible for spiraling rise in the prices of pulses by failing to import the essential commodity on time".
In a statement here, the Chief Minister said, "the present dispensation at the Centre utterly failed to import pulses as a result of which there has been exorbitant rise in the price of the commodity".
"The BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre is solely responsible for the spiraling rise in the prices of pulses as it failed to import the essential commodity at appropriate time," he said.
"Today the hoarders and black marketeers are having a field day and the common man has been hit hard as pulses constitute their staple meal," Gogoi said.
"The Central Government's insensitivity towards the aam aadmi has been exposed by its total failure to keep the prices of pulses under check.
"What acche din the Centre is talking about when it fails to provide staple food of the aam aadmi at reasonable price", the Chief Minister asked.
"As a matter of fact, the hardships and miseries of the aam aadmi have gone up by leaps and bounds during the tenure of the present dispensation at the Centre," he asserted.
Recalling his tenure as Union Minister of State for Food in 1992, Gogoi said he had imported three million tonnes of wheat to keep the prices of the commodity under check.
The Chief Minister also said the present government at the Centre faced scathing criticism from its own Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi for squeezing Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) funds.
"If ICDS programmes aimed at fighting child malnutrition is hit by funds crunch then it has ominous portents of further pushing up infant and maternal mortality rates," he added.
