Varanasi: The rise in prices of onions across the country has left the consumers in tears and people are coming up with unique ways to protest against the skyrocketing prices of the kitchen staple.
On Saturday, workers of Samajwadi Party’s youth wing set up a counter in Varanasi where they gave onions on loan! What’s more is that people can ‘mortgage’ their Aadhaar cards as security and take onions.
Speaking about it, a Samajwadi Party worker told news agency ANI, “This is being done to register our protest against the high price of onions. We are giving onions by keeping Aadhaar Card or silver jewellery as mortgage. At some shops, onions are being kept in lockers as well.”
In Lucknow, Congress party workers sold onions at Rs 40 per kilogram outside the state assembly to protest against the rising prices of the essential commodity.
Congress leader Shailendra Tiwari said, “The rising price of vegetables has affected the household budget in a big way. The government is not willing to listen to the pleas of the common man so we decided to buy onions and sell them at a reasonable rate to the common man.”
Tiwari further said that the objective of the protest was to highlight the fact that the government was not taking up the responsibility to address the people’s hardships.
Prices of onions in the past two days have shot up to Rs 100 per kilogram in several districts of Uttar Pradesh including Prayagraj, Pratapgarh, Bhadohi, Barabanki and Gonda. The Union Cabinet on November 20 approved the import of 1.2 lakh metric tonnes of onion in view of the high prices of the essential commodity in the market.