New Delhi, Sep 15 - As Congress leaders try to outdo each other in taking austerity measures, other political parties have dubbed the drive 'mere tokenism' and 'drama' which they say aims to divert attention from the serious problems plaguing the country.

'What is more important is real work on the ground to address the suffering of the common man. Tokenism bereft of real work on ground becomes patent hypocrisy and laughable,' Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ravi Shankar Prasad told IANS.

'Recently prime minister (Manmohan Singh) wrote to Rural Development Minister C.P. Joshi conveying his unhappiness over his performance,' said the BJP leader. 'So the performance has to go beyond tokenism.'

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) MP Basudeb Acharya also called it tokenism in the time of rising prices and farmer suicides.

'Farmers are still committing suicide. Prices of essential commodities are spiralling. If they have any concern, they should universalise the public distribution system and announce relief packages for farmers.

'It is merely tokenism. They have no concern for the problems of people. I demand a special parliament session to discuss the crisis country is facing,' Acharya said.

The Congress leaders' austerity drive began with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee asking two union ministers, S.M. Krishna and Shashi Tharoor, to vacate their suites in five-star hotels.

Mukherjee had said it on the instructions of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who has asked all party MPs and legislators to contribute 20 percent of their salaries for drought relief and adopt a simple lifestyle to sympathise with the 'less fortunate'.

Since then, Pranab Mukherjee and Sonia Gandhi have both flown economy class. Now Sonia Gandhi's son and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi has taken a train from Delhi to Ludhiana to cut down expenses.