NDA on sticky wicket with ‘arhar Modi’ jibe

The government’s hand is usually weak when Parliament discusses unconscionably high prices of essential commodities at the level of ordinary consumers, as its opponents deploy wit, irony, slogans and other tactics of denunciation to mock it. The Opposition has the popular mood backing it. So, in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley knew he had a bad case but didn’t make heavy weather of it.

He should be happy with that, for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who doesn’t speak often in Parliament and has been criticised for it, was in his elements. He didn’t make a long-winded intervention in the debate but came in with punchy bursts — rhetoric and clever one-liners laced with statistics that bite. He arraigned the Prime Minister for not having a clue how to get prices right, although this had been a key election-time promise. Turning a popular pro-Modi chant at election time 2014 — “Har, har Modi; ghar, ghar Modi” — on its head, Mr Gandhi reminded the House that people were now asking about “Arhar Modi”, with “arhar (tur) dal”, a popular variety of lentil, now selling for close to Rs 200 per kg, close to double the price that prevailed when the UPA was in power at the Centre.

The Congress vice-president thus kept his date with catchy slogans. But the question pertaining to data that he asked was a pithy one, and went unanswered. He said when the UPA gave a minimum support price of Rs 45 to farmers, the consumer paid around Rs 75 per kilo for the lentils (on average), but today the consumer had to pay around Rs 180 per kilo when the MSP had gone up to Rs 50. So, who was cornering the money along the way

Mr Jaitley tried to deride his opponent, saying the issue was one of statistics, not rhetoric. But he sounded limp and unconvincing. The reason is that food inflation is still rocketing. The finance minister offered a hope and a prayer. He said the monsoon was looking good and prices were expected to go down with better supplies. Senior BJP MP Bhartruhari Mahtab made a pertinent point too. Responding to the finance minister’s statement that the wholesale price index had dipped under this government, he said this was the result of much lower international prices of oil and not on account of any government strategy.

It was a bad day out for the government, all in all. As major elections near, high prices and non-availability of jobs will be key issues, not just political questions such as cow-nationalism, and atrocities on dalits. It will be noted that the finance minister was unable to outline a strategy to rein in the extremely high food prices.