CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, briefing mediapersons after a two-hour meeting of the Politburo on Tuesday, said the UPA government was “callous” about the suffering of the common people.

“The UPA government has failed to take any measures to check the price hike. We are not happy at the way the Central government is tackling the crisis,” he added.

Karat’s remarks came a day after Congress president Sonia Gandhi told a huge rally at Malda that the state should accept its share of the inflation blame.

According to senior CPM sources, realising that inflation has become the biggest anti-government issue in the minds of the common people, the party has decided to grab the weapon before the enemy camp appropriates it.

On the one hand, CPM feels trapped by its role of a ruling party in West Bengal and on the other, a UPA backer at the Centre.

The party has realised that the BJP and its allies are making inflation “their” weapon, the sources added. But Karat reiterated that the CPM will not topple the UPA government by withdrawing its support.

“Whatever method we have to take to force the government to change its policy, we will do it,” he said, when asked if inflation is a more politically sensitive issue than the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.

Referring to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s muted criticism of the state's failure to meet the foodgrain procurement target, Karat said: “This is the job of the Central government and the FCI.”

He said Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had informed the Polituburo that FCI has procured only 6 lakh tonne of foodgrain against its target of 17 lakh tonne, and also supplied Bangladesh three lakh tonne. “The state cannot be only responsible for the food policy,” he added.

Karat further said the “neo-liberal” policies of the UPA government are to blame for the general rise in prices, citing the largescale procurement by private sector foreign and Indian majors like Cargill of the US.

Earlier, former chief minister Jyoti Basu, emerging from the Politburo meeting, sought to put the entire blame on the Centre. “It is the Central government’s duty to tackle price rise. They should follow the common minimum programme,” Basu said.