Oppn gears up for a big fight but does the govt care?

Price rise, privatization and prohibition of protests. These are terms which have been ringing in the ears of people across the country with uncanny regularity in the past many months but the ruling BJP at the Centre seems determined to go ahead with plans for disinvestment and policies which trigger price rise. Voices for a relook at its economic strategy, which could throw thousands out of their jobs, have as always, fallen on deaf ears.

The party continues to be in celebratory mood over its victory in four of the five states which went to polls recently even as workers from all streams-banking, power and transport among others, gear up for a massive two-day protest on March 28 and 29 to safeguard their rights and means of livelihood.

The Opposition Congress party which was virtually whitewashed in the recent polls, is not sitting idle and will launch a full fledged protest against spiraling prices including those of fuel and LPG from March 31. Fuel prices have been rising every day since the Assembly poll results were announced on March 10 and there is no sign of them stabilising in the near future with the Ukraine-Russia war still raging.

For the common man in this country, yet to emerge from the vice-like grip of the pandemic, prices and jobs matter more than anything else after the havoc that Covid wrought on the economy. Job generation is yet to pick up pace with business sectors having a lot of catching up to do to attain their pre-Covid levels. Hundreds of industries have shut shop and though industrial investment has started picking up, there are miles to go before a semblance of normalcy returns to the economy.

So are salaried employees and workers wrong in demanding that the government keep prices in check and launch a massive campaign to generate means of livelihood instead of throwing more people out of jobs onto the streets by going into overdrive on privatisation and disinvestment? Buoyed by powerful victories driven by a Hindutva agenda, have those in power forgotten that India still lies somewhere at the bottom of the economic ladder with huge inequalities tearing apart any façade of a thriving economy?

Considering the divisions among them, trade unions may not succeed in bringing the nation to a grinding halt and make sure those in power take heed of their protest. Nor is the Congress agitation expected to bring the government to its knees and help in arresting skyrocketing prices.

But the opposition voices have to keep ringing to make those in power realise that the future of millions rests on the policy decisions they make and until the last man in this country has a contented look on his face, no government can claim to have wiped the tears of the poor.