Price rise: Vajpayee, Advani court arrest

Price rise: Vajpayee, Advani court arrest

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 (New Delhi):

In a show of strength on the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament, a large number of BJP activists led by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and party President L K Advani today courted arrest to protest against rising prices.

The leaders were arrested at the Ambedkar stadium in central Delhi as they marched from the Ramlila Maidan towards Parliament House.

Later they were released, after which Advani launched a scathing attack on the Centre for what he said was its failure at controlling inflation.

"In the six years that we were in power there were serious economic problems, but it did not affect the people," he said.

"Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha ran the economy in such a way that in those six years economic problems were not allowed to affect the lives of common people," Advani added.

The issue of inflation dominated Parliament as well. The first day of the Winter Session tunred out to be as stormy as the previous ones.

The BJP eventually walked out of the Lok Sabha to protest against the government's inflationary policies.

news from ndtv.com

(With PTI inputs)