The phenomenal behaviour of commodities prices during the UPA regime is not the result of demand push. Finance Minister, Prime Minister and the UPA Chair person Sonia Gandhi, all expressed lip sympathy for the suffering consumer; it did not help at all. Fiscal remedies are very indirect methods

Punjab has never witnessed an election like the one recently held for its Legislative Assembly. Astonishingly the main election issue was that of price rise. Although price rise was passingly mentioned by national leaders during their election campaign but it did not betray any symptoms of denting an alarming blow to the Congress' sense of confidence for victory in the elections.

However, leaders of Akali-BJP combine in Punjab were sensitive enough about its unprecedented devastation of the family budget. Punjab is a rich State and the issue of price rise has not normally pinched the electorate. If Congress loses Punjab, it would be result of anti-incumbency factor against the Centre and not State Government, for the exorbitant price rise is a national phenomenon and a particular State has very little to do with it. Be it is wholesale price index, consumer price index or labour price index.

The soaring prices of their favourite Maa ki dal not only aggrieved the poor but middle classes also. Everybody knows that Punjabis relish tandoori roti and Maa ki Dal. The price of wheat flour has gone up from Rs 10 to Rs 18 per kg and the price of Maa ki Dal from Rs 40 to Rs 70 per kg. Prices of other edible items has also sky rocketed.

The anti-incumbency against Centre played a major role in the Maharastra electoral results though the Centre attributed failure to the State congress leaders, when in the local elections of Nagar Palikas and Corporations Congress suffered debacle. The election results were quite surprising, for either Shiv Sena, nor the BJP were in pink of their health. BJP had lost its tallest State leader, Pramod Mahajan and Shiv Sena suffered two splits.

First, Narayan Rane left the Sena alongwith his powerful group to the benefit of Congress; thereafter, a strong pillar of Sena, Raj Thakarey deserted the party alongwith his influential colleagues. These political factors were discussed in detail during election campaign but I have a feeling that the price rise was a major reason of Congress debacle. There are reasons to believe that this potent issue has impacted the outcome of Corporation elections in UP too.

The phenomenal behaviour of commodities prices during UPA regime is not the result of demand push. Finance Minister, Prime Minister and UPA Chair person Sonia Gandhi, all expressed lip sympathy for the suffering consumer; it did not help at all. Fiscal remedies are very indirect methods. These do not work much if the case is of short supply and under production.

Although election results are the outcome of scores of factors and attributing one or two reasons to it may be very simplistic but that is not so in the case of hyper-inflation. Last week an economist friend of mine from Bangalore wrote a piece on rising prices and gave one example: idli sambhar, the popular breakfast in South India was fpr Rs 4 per plate just one year back, it is now sells at Rs 8 per plate.

One key factor, which influenced general price rise, was repeated enhancement of diesel and petro-product rates. Perhaps it was justified when oil prices in the international market went up to $ 70 per barrel. But in the last six months, oil prices have fallen to $ 50 per barrel. The Government-controlled prices of petro-products should have been proportionately reduced and this might have eased the price rise, for diesel rates affect the prices of every commodity directly or indirectly.

The calculations of price indexes of four types do not reflect the reality of retail market. For example, higher inflation rate of 6.6 may mean a lot to economists who are discussing Indian economy internationally but for an ordinary Indian, local retail price is what really matters. Price of onion rising from Rs 15 to Rs 25 per kg has reduced the onion content in salad. In Punjab's dhaba culture, attendants have been traditionally very liberal in giving Maa ki dal to the customers. Today the liberal dal serving has vanished.

Prices have a tendency like that of lotus plant is the pond. It grows up with rise in water level but when water level comes down, the plant's length does not shrink. The price level hitherto attained is not going to come down, by and large. And I dare say that the prices are going to be a big issue is the next phase of elections, including the general elections. A top industrialist recently commented that is 2004; BJP and allies were over-confident of winning majority and the Congress could not have dreamt of coming to power.

But the results were shocking. In the next general elections of 2009 BJP may not expect to perform better and the Congress may hope to continue in the dominant position. But the results may bring a smile for the BJP and the allies. Thanks mainly to consumer's anger.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, February 18, 2007