After a meeting with Mukherjee where Left leaders insisted that they would not relent on their adjournment motion on price rise, senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters that he had assured them that he would discuss the issue with the Prime Minister and "get back to us".
Yechury`s senior colleague Basudeb Acharia had given an adjournment notice in the Lok Sabha, while a notice on the issue under Rule 168, which entails voting, would be given by the Left parties in Rajya Sabha tomorrow, the two CPI(M) leaders said. Yechury said discussions on the price situation have been held in the past two sessions and unanimous resolutions passed earlier "calling upon the government to take all measures to protect the common man". He aded,"But no action has been initiated so far. Food inflation has risen to 12 per cent and the overall inflation rate is escalating exponentially".
As steps to check rising prices, the Left parties are demanding an end to deregulation of petroleum prices, rollback of the hikes in petrol prices, ban on forward and speculative trading on all essential commodities and universalisation of the public distribution system.
"We want the government to respond to these measures that we have been suggesting for long," Yechury said, adding that the Left parties "do not favour disruption of the House but want discussion on these and other important issues."