Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday questioned the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the constant rise in the prices of petroleum products and alleged that the common people were “paying the price” for electing Modi government at the Centre.
Addressing a press conference, AAP’s national spokesperson Dilip Pandey said for last nine days the constant rise in price of petrol and diesel have proved that the “Modi government is working against the public and has prepared a good strategy to rob people through taxes.”
“We want to know the reason behind this rise.” Claiming “the price of petroleum products is going down in the international market, why can’t the BJP government at the Centre reduce the price for the people,” he asked.
“They should also tell us who are they trying to benefit with this hike.” Pandey said there was not a rise of a single penny during the twenty days of Karnataka election process.
“Immediately after election Rs 2 hike was seen and from that day the rise in petroleum products started facing daily hikes in the price all over the country,” he said.
Pandey said when the BJP was in opposition, its leaders would talk about such issues and call the then Union government anti-poor. Pandey said from May 2014, the Central excise duty on petroleum products has increased “nine times”, despite the fact that the prices of crude oil has “gone down drastically.”
“In the year 2014 the central excise duty on petroleum was hiked by 212 percent. If we talk about diesel the situation is even worse. Duty on the product was raised by 450 percent,” he said.