Sheila Dikshit hand in glove with hoarders: Murli Manohar Joshi

NEW DELHI:As part of its ‘ Dus Din Dus Irade’ campaign, BJP on Sunday announced a number of measures to bring down prices of food items after coming to power. Under this campaign, the party has already promised a cell for senior citizens and a universal health scheme.

Taking a dig at Congress leader and Union law minister Kapil Sibal, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said that Sibal’s reported statement that vegetable prices have risen because poor are buying more, was absurd. “Only he, a lawyer-politician could come up with such absurdity ,” said Joshi.

He further alleged that Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit was “hand in glove” with hoarders and speculators. “Congress CM Prithviraj Chavan has categorically said that despite his many requests to Dikshit, she refused to buy vegetables directly from the farmers and preferred buying through middlemen instead,” he said while addressing media along with BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, Harsh Vardhan.

Joshi said that BJP’s focus is on the rural and middle class voter segment. After coming to power, BJP plans to amend the Agricultural Produce Market Committee ( APMC) to ensure direct sale by farmers to the consumers, and cut out the middlemen, Joshi said. He added that a permanent ‘food prices commission’ will be set up to check hoarding and 2kg of pulses supply per month will be provided to the poor at Rs 5 per kg, along with the setting up of cold storages in Delhi.

“Our government would amend the APMC act to enable farmers to sell their produce directly to Delhi market. We will remove mandatory requirement of buying through local communities. This will encourage competition, and the prices will automatically come down,” Joshi claimed. He said that to protect farmer interests, BJP will go on fighting against FDI in multibrand retail.