INFLATION, currently at 11.89%, certain to play spoilsport to the Congress' chance in the coming elections, may also hamper UPA's search for the requisite number of members to ensure a victory in next week's trust vote. Although the trust vote has been necessitated by the Left withdrawal of support to the government over the Indo-US nuclear deal, it is price rise that is a much more potent electoral issue. Economists are now saying that the monetary measures taken by the government to tame inflation are not having desired results. The government has relied largely on monetary measures like raising interest rates. This has meant that consumer loans like housing, car or personal loans have become more expensive. This is likely to impact electoral fortunes in the post-delimitation scenario due to the increasingly urban nature of the electorate. Higher cost of loans would also mean that the middle class, especially in urban centres, is more likely to go slow on consumption of manufactured goods. This decline in demand coupled with higher interest rates, which has made credit more expensive for business and the small and medium enterprises, would lead to a slowdown in industrial production and consequently in economic growth. This is already evident from the plunging index for industrial production which was at 3.8% in May. All this indicates that the growth rate would be adversely affected. The growth story, three years of sustained 9% growth rate, has been part of the UPA's achievement story. Now that it is tarnished, the lead member, the Congress may find it difficult to get members on board, especially with election less than a year away. No one more than the Congress is aware of how electorally potent the issue of price rise can be, especially having lost an election in its traditional bastion of Karnataka. Perhaps, aware of the negative impact of forecast on its ability to find willing allies, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his briefing to editors and senior journalists outlined the steps his government has taken "to sustain the growth momentum and curb inflation, in the face of external pressures on account of rising crude oil prices'. Neither political opponents nor economists have bought this line of argument. The government's political opponents, including the Left, have continually charged it with mismanaging the economy. In a bid to allay fears of would be supporters on this count, Mr Singh also referred to initiatives taken "to make the growth process socially inclusive, including the measures taken to insulate the poor to the extent possible from inflation', referring no doubt to the NREGA and the farm loan waiver package.