New Delhi, Jul 13 (IANS): The Congress party is holding a series of press conferences, 23 of them across the country to rake up the issues of rising inflation and fuel price hike. All the senior party leaders have been roped in to highlight the plight of the people. The press conferences are in the wake of Congress holding protests till July 17 on the issue.

Kamal Nath, Bhupesh Baghel, Digvijaya Singh, Anand Sharma, M. Kharge and Manish Tewari are among the 23 leaders who will be addressing the press conferences. In UP, Kamal Nath will do a press conference and Tewari and Sachin Pilot in Dehradun.

On Tuesday, P. Chidambaram addressed a press conference in Delhi and targeted the government for inflation and demanded relief for people.

Addressing a press conference here, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said, "Inflation, even in a normal time, would be intolerable. The present is not a normal time. A pandemic is raging across the country. The pandemic has resulted in jobs being axed, unemployment rising to 8.1 per cent and incomes/wages being cut for millions of working people. In such a situation of widespread distress, inflation has broken the back of the people, and we hold the Central government under Narendra Modi directly responsible for the high inflation."

"Let me caution the government, the issue of high inflation will not go away if you pretend it does not exist," he said.