With rupee going through “a free fall”, the BJP on Wednesday suggested that the only solution to bail out the economy is early general polls and asked the UPA government to quit. The main Opposition asserted that the UPA has “run out of ideas to avert the crisis” as the rupee reached an all time low of '68 against the US dollar. “I have been saying that the only thing that will stabilise rupee and market at this point of time is for the government to resign and go for fresh elections,” senior BJP leader and former finance minister Yashwant Sinha said. His party colleague Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Indian economy under Manmohan Singh “is on ventilator in the ICU. It is happening because of big CAD and fiscal deficit, and complete lack of trust of investors in the present ruling establishment.” Mr Prasad asked why was the Prime Minister silent on the issue as in the “prevailing crisis”. It is for the economist Prime Minister to assure the country of the steps being taken to deal with it. In a veiled remark on enhanced public expenditure envisaged by the government on account of the proposed Food Security Bill, Mr Prasad said, “In this scenario you keep doing reckless expenditure and populist measures. These will only aggravate the problem.” The Left parties also attacked the government’s policies and said the country was heading towards an economic emergency. CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta said the country is heading towards “economic emergency”. “Dollar growing is actually the rich parking their money in foreign currencies because they seem to have lost faith in Indian economy, because the Indian economy’s domestic demand is not growing,” CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury said. “What is required is to stop these incentives for the rich. You are giving these incentives of more than '5 lakh crore every year in terms of tax concessions. These incentives are making the rich park their money in gold, forex and real estate. Stop these incentives and invest this money to build infrastructure that will generate jobs,” he suggested.
