New Delhi, Apr 7: India's opposition parties are organising nationwide protests against rising prices of basic foodstuffs, in the latest sign inflation could become the major issue for voters ahead of general elections.

Annual wholesale price inflation has jumped to its highest in more than three years at 7 per cent, even after a flurry of duty cuts and export bans by the government, and was followed by announcements of protests from parties sniffing electoral blood.

India faces general elections anytime between October and May. The contest will pitch the ruling left-of-centre Congress-led coalition against the main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP has announced protests starting on Monday.

"Inflation is breaking records," said Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, BJP vice-president. "The inflation policies of the central government are weak on this. It will be a major electoral issue."

The United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA), an alliance of regional parties hoping to be a "third force" in India, has also joined hands with the Communist Party of India, one of India's biggest leftist parties, for protests from April 16.

"The government is going to pay a high political price (for inflation)," said D Raja, a senior leader of the CPI. Rising international commodities prices on speculation, surging demand in Asia, bad weather and biofuels have helped fuel inflation in India, already suffering from local supply bottlenecks from heavily regulated markets.

Those price rises have come just at the wrong time for Congress, mindful of 2004 when the BJP lost power in a backlash from millions of India's poor who felt economic growth had not benefited them. Now parties like the BJP seek revenge.

Govt. to rein in inflation: Pawar

Chandigarh: With the Left-UNPA announcing a nationwide stir over Centre's "failure" to tame inflation, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Monday said prices of essential commodities would be kept under check. "Common man will not be burdened and prices will be kept under check," he told reporters here.

Pawar, who held a meeting with Punjab and Haryana Chief Ministers to assess the damage caused to standing crops by recent hailstorms in the two states, flayed political parties for "deriving" political mileage over the issue.

He merely said on the one hand, some people demand hike in MSP of crops and on the other, they talk of inflation. "The two cannot go hand-in-hand," Pawar said.

Yechury for steps to curb inflation

New Delhi: A day after threatening the ruling coalition with dire consequences if it failed to check the spiralling prices, senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury on Monday met UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and sought urgent steps by the government to curb inflation. During his meeting with Gandhi, Yechury reiterated the demands of the Left parties and the UNPA to curb the rising prices, sources said. The meeting came a day after the UNPA and the Left parties announced their proposed nationwide agitation against the government on the issue.