Inside the Assembly on Wednesday, Food and Civil Supplies minister G R Anil witnessed the opposition charging at him with the very same weapons he had so gleefully sharpened.
The occasion was the adjournment motion moved by the UDF in the Assembly on the galloping prices of essential commodities.
The minister said Kerala had kept prices in check like no other state in the country. He compared the prices of certain essential commodities like rice, sugar, peas, bengal gram and turmeric in Supplyco outlets and the open market. The price difference was huge, between 50 and 100 per cent.
The minister presented this as a major achievement as if the rise in prices were effectively taken care of. He also said that the prices of over 13 essential commodities had not been changed since 2016.
Congress MLA Roji M John, who moved the adjournment motion, asked whether the minister had the spine to tell this comparison to the common man.
Opposition Leader V D Satheesan said that the minister himself had made the opposition's case. "That the open market prices are so high, as the minister just said, is our case. Our point is that the market intervention of the government is not effective enough," Satheesan said, and added: "I was surprised when the ruling side was cheering each of these price variations."
He admitted that Supplyco prices were low as the minister claimed, but ridiculed the minister's seeming contention that the government's role ended with keeping prices low in government outlets. "If keeping Supplyco prices low was enough then people would not have found the need to visit the usual provision or margin free shops. These shops, including Lulu Mall, would have been shut by now for want of customers," the Opposition leader said. He was essentially saying that it was just a minority that depends on Supplyco outlets.
Satheesan did not heap all the blame on the government and said that inflation was the result of a host of factors, including global events. "We just want the government to be more vigilant," he said.
The Opposition Leader said that the government should be sensitive to the changes in prices and take steps to check hoarding and the black market.
Further, he said there was the looming fear that fuel prices would soon be hiked with crude oil prices soaring in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war. "This will set off another round of price hike and we should be vigilant, " he said.
