The ruling party, which since March end has been saying that prices would be contained “within a few weeks’ time”, has for the first time given itself a specific time period to control the prices.

Giving figures from across the world to show that inflation is not a phenomenon to hit only India,  and Union Minister Kapil Sibal said: “The Opposition attack on the Central government on the issue of inflation is because of the Karnataka elections.”

“They think by doing that, they can win the elections like a T20 cricket match. They did the same thing and raised the inflation bogey before the Punjab, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh elections,” he said.

Incidentally, the Congress had lost the elections in all these states.

“Prices will come down within six weeks. Everybody knows the global scenario. It is not right for the Opposition to play politics of hunger because they have a hunger for politics,” he said, even as he downplayed the Left protests against the price rise as being “ideological”.