With political campaigns in Delhi in the final lap, parties are playing their last cards to woo voters. Among the vital issues taken up by all parties has been the spiralling prices of vegetables and other essential commodities.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party has blamed the Congress’s policies for the price rise, the Congress has cited the global recession to defend itself.

The BJP has been attempting to cash in on the trend, making mehangayi a major poll plank. The Opposition has blamed the Sheila Dikshit government in Delhi and the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre for the rise in prices, with ad campaigns all over the city stating mehengayi to be the most important issue people in the Capital face at present. An ad by the party’s candidate for CM, V K Malhotra says the government should go because potatoes and onions have cost the people dear.

Ramesh Gupta, the convener of the media cell of BJP’s Delhi unit, said, “The steep rise in prices is an indication of the bad policies of the Congress and we are sure to benefit from it.”

“Just the increase in prices of household amenities are enough to throw the Congress government out,” another worker at the party office said.

Congress workers, on the other hand, say they have been going to voters with a price list that existed at the time of the BJP rule in Delhi in 1998, after which the Congress came to power. “Onions cost Rs 65 per kg back then. Today, in spite of the inflation and the global recession, they are at Rs 25 per kg. Has the BJP forgotten its misdeeds?” a worker at the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee office said.

... contd.