Jaipur, Apr. 15 : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activists on Tuesday staged a protest here against the failure of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government to curb inflation.

Hundreds of party activists took to the streets, shouting slogans against the government's inept handling of the inflationary spiral..

Addressing the protestors, BJP vice-president M. Venkaiah Naidu accused the Congress-led ruling alliance of corruption, and of triggering inflation whenever it came to power.

"There was no shortage, no queues and no question of black marketeering (during the previous Atal Bihari Vajpayee's regime). And then the Congress came to power and along with it came inflation, corruption, and black marketing. Whenever the Congress party comes to power inflation, shortage, queues and corruption are widespread," he said.

He also charged that the government with adopting behaviourisms similar to Roman Emperor Nero, which suggested continuation of the dynastic rule of the Nehru-Gandhi family, including discussing the possibility of Rahul Gandhi becoming the next prime minister, rather than taking immediate measures to control inflationary trends.

However, the government said that the state governments should ensure that there was no hoarding of food grain stocks, nor, any shortage in the production of food grain.

"We would like to see that the state governments ensure that there is no hoarding, no profiteering. The state governments have the mechanism and must ensure that the supply lines are not choked. We do know that the production of food grain and oil seeds have not gone down. Production has not gone down, so if there are supply side constraints, a large part of the responsibility rests with the state governments, also that they are (have to be) proactive in this," said Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath in New Delhi today.

According to latest reports, India's inflation rate surged on Friday (April 11) to its highest level of 7.41 percent since mid-November 2004. The inflation rate has nearly doubled since December 2007.(ANI)