Well my dear, its a game of politics! What if NDA were in power and inflation had risen this high? You think the UPA or the parties constituting UPA today would have kept quiet? They would have similarly charged the government with mishandling the situation. But the fact of the situation is, they indeed have mishandled in certain areas of managing food stocks the direct fallout of which is today's food inflation, though much lower as compared to international prices.
As for Advani's economic sense, I don't think he needs that. He can leave it to the likes of Jaswant Singh and Arun Shourie, two people from the NDA cabinet who carried out reforms. What Advani needs as a PM hopeful is a broad vision for the country. Vajpayee was not a trained economist but he had the vision - as famously put by the former NSA Brajesh Mishra - to be the only other person after Sher Shah Suri to envision a grand plan for road construction. The Golden Quadrilateral is perhaps the most ambitious infra project just like the Grand Trunk Road must have been when it was built by Sher Shah Suri.
What has the Congress led UPA done to the GQ? The construction work on the project was so abysmally low that it had almost halted. Now with the inflation and high cement prices, whom would you blame for escalating project costs? the NDA? OK. Blame it on the Left. But the govt's flagship rozgar schemes have attained notoriety for high corruption involved in them...
