New Delhi, June 13
The Left parties today stepped up their attack on the government, accusing the ruling UPA of adopting a "slack attitude" towards containing inflation which has soared to a seven-year high of 8.75 per cent. The parties, which provide crucial outside support to the Congress-led dispensation, alleged that the government has surrendered itself to market speculators.

Amid fears that inflation may cross the double digit mark in the coming days, CPM senior leader Nilotpal Basu said the country's economic scenario was "very, very critical" and that only a paradigm shift in policies would help.

"The price rise is primarily due to weakening of the public distribution system and policies regarding to food economy. The government is dancing to the tunes of market speculators and public stock brokers," Basu told PTI.

"We don't think the government is taking earnest steps to control the situation. There are only half-hearted and incomplete measures," he said.

Basu, a CPM Central Committee member, said the "neo-liberal" economic policies pursued by the government was the cause for the present economic crisis.

He said the government has "failed" to make it clear that the rising oil prices in the international market was due to speculative trade by global traders and did not adopt any measure to check it.

Attacking BJP, he said, the opposition party was only making "hollow statements" on the issue and they were pursuing the same economic policies as that of the Congress. — PTI