Chief minister Mamata Banerjee today alleged the Centre of “tormenting” the people of the country by regularly raising prices of fuel following reports of a hike of Rs 50 in the price of a domestic LPG cylinder.

Miss Banerjee also accused the Centre of conducting a “great Indian loot” by hiking prices of petrol, diesel, LPG and other essential commodities.

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Taking to Twitter Miss Banerjee wrote: “The Union government must immediately stop tormenting the people of India! By repeatedly increasing fuel prices, LPG prices & prices of essential commodities, @BJP4India is actually conducting a Great Indian Loot. People are being fooled.”

The price of domestic cooking gas was increased by Rs 50 per cylinder on Saturday, the second increase in the last two months, taking the price to Rs 1,026 in Kolkata.

In a scathing attack on the Centre, Ms Banerjee in a social media post said the hikes in petroleum products, including the sky-high LPG prices, would constitute as nothing but an act of “repression”. The people of the country are being subjected to repression at the behest of the BJP-led government at the Centre.

“The trend of continued price hike in petro-products, including the price of domestic gas cylinders, which today crossed the thousand-mark, is tantamount to be an act of resorting to great India loot by befooling people. This act of bigotry should stop at once,” Banerjee wrote.

The Congress, while taking a dig at the Centre over the hike, said the current dispensation at the Centre, led by the Narendra Modi had brought the subsidy down to a nil.

The grand old party claimed in a statement, while the Congress was in power at the Centre, during the 2013-14 financial year, it had pumped in almost Rs 46.50 cr as subsidy to bring the prices under control.

Dilip Ghosh, the BJP national vice-president and former state unit president, however, attributed the latest shoot-up in LPG price to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and said that the prices of all petroleum products had skyrocketed all over the world due to ongoing  conflict and had an adverse impact in the world’s economy.

“Despite that in our country due to the Centre’s efforts it had been kept under leash to an extent but yet registered a hike. So, we have to bear it,”  said Ghosh.