‘What Will Poor Man Eat?’ Priyanka Gandhi Attacks BJP After Surge In Wholesale, Retail Inflation

Wholesale prices based inflation surged to 2.59 per cent in December, as against 0.58 per cent in November due to increase in prices of food articles like onion and potato.

The wholesale Vegetable Market in Kolkata (Photo by Debajyoti Chakraborty/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

New Delhi: As surging inflation continues to beleaguer the consumers, on both retail and wholesale front, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra launched a bitter attack at the Narendra Modi government at Centre, saying the BJP has delivered a blow to the stomachs of the poor, after stealing money from their pockets. Wholesale prices based inflation surged to 2.59 per cent in December, as against 0.58 per cent in November due to increase in prices of food articles like onion and potato. The annual inflation, based on the monthly wholesale price index (WPI), was at 3.46 per cent during the same month a year ago (December 2018). Among food articles, vegetable prices surged by 69.69 per cent mainly on account of onion, which witnessed 455.83 per cent jump in prices, followed by potato at 44.97 per cent. The consumer price index-based retail inflation, as per data released on Monday, spiked to over a 5-year high of 7.35 per cent in December due to costlier food products. In a tweet, Priyanka said, "Prices of vegetables and food items are getting out of reach for common man. What will the poor eat when the prices of vegetables, edible oil, pulses and wheat flour become expensive? And due to recession people are not getting even work. The BJP government after stealing money from the pockets of people has now kicked on their stomach." As per the data furnished by the National Statistical Office, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December was higher than the corresponding period of last year when retail inflation stood at 2.11 per cent. Similarly, the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) inflated to 14.12 per cent during the month under review from an expansion of 10.01 per cent in November 2019 and (-)2.65 per cent rise reported for the corresponding period of last year. (with inputs from agencies)