Claiming that the Central government had no role in spiralling prices, BJP general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu instead blamed previous governments. Bad weather conditions, crop failure and the anti-farmer policies of earlier governments were responsible for the current conditions in the markets, he said.

Refuting suggestions the Centre could have intervened sooner to bring prices under control (by banning export of onions and potatoes and allowing import under OGL), Naidu replied that the right steps had been taken ``at the right time''.

Meanwhile, the government on Tuesday directed the NAFED, a national agency, to airlift 2250 tonnes of onions from West Asia totide over the shortages that sky-rocketed prices of the commodity to Rs 50 per kg in northern parts of the country.

However, the Central government Civil Supplies officials strongly felt that hoarding of onions was there otherwise a marginal fall in the onion production could not have led such abnormal rise of prices.

The officials, on the condition of anonymity, said the onions seemed to have assumed political overtones and ``we fail to understand why it happens so on the election eve''. They suspected onion traders of having formed a cartel and resorted to hoarding the commodity which could be stored for a long duration to manipulate the prices.

On other hand, Delhi government Civil Supplies Minister Purnima Sethi said they had no received any compliant of hoarding and there was no question of initiating any dehoarding measures.

The BJP also lit into Congress President Sonia Gandhi for warning the people that voting for the BJP in the coming assembly elections would lead to heightened tension in thecountry. In the past six months of BJP rule at the Centre there had been no tension, Naidu said. ``We do not need any lessons on our secular tradition from the Congress President. Saraswati vandana may be alien to a certain worldview and a certain culture, it is definitely not alien to Indian culture and tradition,'' he said.

Lambasting Sonia for criticising the Pokharan tests, Naidu questioned her party's commitment to national security. Demanding that the Congress clarify its stand on the nuclear tests, Naidu said that if Sonia was critical of Pokharan II, she should also criticise Pokhran I which was conducted when Indira Gandhi was in power.

Accusing Sonia of distorting history in order to whitewash Congress crimes, Naidu said that India's internal issues had not been internationalised due to Pokharan II as she had alleged. Rather, it was Jawaharlal Nehru who had internationalised the Kashmir issue 50 years ago by taking it to the UN against the advice of Sardar Patel.

Ridiculing Sonia's claims thatthe Congress's priority was ``development and not personal welfare'', Naidu said that Congress regimes had come to be known as cash-and-carry governments. He referred to Ottavio Quattrocchi, corruption by senior Congress leaders and the fact that the Congress continued to cohabit with corrupt parties like Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal.