The Congress MPs today protested the hike in fuel prices outside Parliament.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi led the protest. The Congress protestors raised slogans and demanded the reversal of fuel prices. The sit-in protest is a precursor to the congress nationwide campaign against the rising prices – ‘Mehngai-mukt Bharat Abhiyaan’ or ‘inflation-free India’ which also started today. The campaign would continue for a week and end on April 7.
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Rahul Gandhi has been a vocal critic of the BJP government when it comes to the price hike. Earlier he had said that the government would hike the petroleum prices after the elections in the five states are done. “In the last 10 days, petrol and diesel price have been increased nine times. We demand that the rising prices should be brought under control. The Congress is holding nationwide protests on this issue today,” Rahul Gandhi told the media.
It is not the first time that the prices of petroleum products are revised. The petrol prices are constantly rising for the last several days. They were once again revised on Thursday, that was the ninth hike in the past 10 days. in several cities. Petrol breached the Rs 100 mark in Delhi and went up to Rs. 101.81 per litre while diesel is now Rs. 93.01 litre. In Mumbai, petrol now costs Rs 116.72 and diesel costs Rs 100.94 per litre.
The opposition has been raising the issue of price hikes but not with much traction. The BJP somehow managed to skirt the issue in the recently held assembly elections. Interestingly the fuel prices remained static before the election for a long time. Several opposition parties have been attacking the government over the continuous upward trend in petrol and diesel prices.
“We had predicted that as soon as elections in five states will conclude, the fuel prices will be hiked. We demand that fuel prices be rolled back. The government cannot understand the difficulties being faced by the public because of the rise,” Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury told the agencies.
The government has maintained that the hike in prices is due to the Ukraine war. In the wake of the war Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said in the parliament, that fuel prices will ultimately be determined by the oil companies but the government would ‘provide relief to consumers at the point of consumption.’
Earlier Rahul Gandhi had attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the fuel price hike. In a tweet, he taunted “Prime Minister’s daily to-do list – how much to increase in petrol, diesel and gas rates, how to stop discussion on rising expenses, how to show hollow dreams of employment to the youth, which public sector company to sell and how to make farmers more helpless,” he wrote in Hindi. He hashtagged his tweet #RozSubahkiBaat, mocking Modi’s ‘Mann Ki Baat’.
