Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, already under fire over a multibillion-dollar telecoms corruption scandal, suddenly has a more down-to-earth problem on his plate – the skyrocketing price of onions.
Their price at India’s retail vegetable markets has doubled from Rs35 (77 cents) per kg to Rs80 in the past few days, angering consumers already feeling the pinch from a year of double-digit food price inflation and rising fuel prices.
An essential ingredient in most Indian cooking, onions are a politically potent issue in India. Past governments have paid a high price over their failure to control the price of this dietary staple. In the 1980s, Congress forced out the national government over the price of onions and in 1998, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party lost control of the New Delhi state government over a similar issue.