Chidambaram completely unaware of middle class travails: Yashwant Sinha

New Delhi - Taking potshots at Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram for his remarks on the Indian middle class, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday said the former is completely unaware of the travails of the middle class.

"He reminded me of the French Queen Marie Antoinette, who said, "Eat cake if you don't have bread". Mr. Chidambaram is completely unaware of the travails of the middle class. That is why he is making such remarks," Sinha told ANI.

"He (Chidambaram) had probably in mind the picture of middle class kids or some upper class kids going to malls in Delhi. He doesn't know the state of the middle class in the villages of India," he added.

Sinha, who was the country's finance minister during the NDA regime, further said it is the middle class, which has to suffer the most because of uncontrolled inflation.

"The middle class is generally a salary class, whether in the government sector, or in the private sector, or they are professional. They are the ones, who are the hardest hit as a result of this uncontrolled inflation," he said.

Chidambaram had earlier on Tuesday said the Indian middle class spends money on mineral water and ice cream without a fuss, but protests against a small increase in the price of rice and wheat.

"Higher procurement prices benefit millions of farmers. If you increase the price of sugarcane, sugar cannot be cheaper than before. If you increase the price of procured wheat or procured paddy, (the price of) rice and wheat for the consumer cannot be less," Chidambaram told media in Bangalore.

"Sometimes, and I have written about this once, we are prepared to pay 15 rupees for a bottle of water, but we will not bear a one rupee increase in the price of a kilo of rice or wheat. We are prepared to pay rupees twenty for an ice cream cone but won't pay one rupee more for a kilo of wheat or rice," he added.