The government blamed the opposition when the latter stalled the parliamentary proceedings last week and when the stalemate was over and leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj stood up in the Lok Sabha to begin the discussion on the crucial issue, no leader from the government turned up: the prime minister, the leader of house (who is also the finance minister), the petroleum minister and even the agriculture minister were all absent in the house on Tuesday. Even though the floor managers in the house ensured the presence of a few later, it clearly sends a message to the aam aadmi about how serious the government is about his concerns.

Will this debate on price rise in parliament end up as just another debate or will the government take concrete steps to minimise the common man's hardships? The UPA government’s misplaced policies have led to a situation where a large number of families are battling to survive. As a Hindi film song popular these days puts it, “Mehangai dayan khaye jaat hai”, but the government seems to be sleeping on the price graph.

Swaraj described the opposition as a watchman of people's interests in her speech and it is a sliver lining that the watchman has woken up and raised the issue but we don’t know when the government will wake up from deep slumber and take urgent steps to provide relief to the common man.