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Union Minister Piyush Goyal has said that the Centre will pull all stops to ensure prices of essential food items from onion to tomatoes to pulses do not spike particularly during the elections. He asserted that the government would continue to take measures to ensure that there is no stress on the household budget of ‘our Nari-Shakti’. The Election Commission is expected to announce the poll schedule soon and the Lok Sabha elections are likely to be held in April-May.

The minister has highlighted that the government has spent in the last few years about Rs 28,000 crore to the price stabilisation fund to support the effort to fight against food inflation. He said ‘when the whole world was facing severe inflation, particularly food inflation, and never seen before levels, some countries of the developed world were showing 40-year high inflation, India was a bright spot in the subject of inflation’. 

During the UPA-era, Goyal said, the inflation was at high levels and food prices were going haywire. He said ‘if you look at the India story, even during the worst times, we were able to maintain our inflation at pretty much reasonable levels. We did not allow any product to see spikes beyond a point. If we saw any product going expensive, very often for reasons beyond our control, we acted immediately’.