Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched an attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman over the recent hike in petrol and diesel prices despite a major global oil prices crash.
Taking it to Twitter, Rahul Gandhi tagged a video of finance minister’s press conference in which she was seen allegedly ignoring the questions of slash in prices of crude oil impacting the current oil prices in India.
“Just 3 days ago I had requested PMO India to pass on the benefit of the global oil price crash to Indian consumers, by slashing the prices of petrol and diesel in India,” he said in his tweet.
He further added, “Instead of heeding this advice, our genius has gone and hiked excise duty on fuel!”
Just 3 days ago I had requested @PMOIndia to pass on the benefit of the global oil price crash to Indian consumers, by slashing the prices of petrol & diesel in India. Instead of heeding this advice, our genius has gone and hiked #exciseduty on fuel! pic.twitter.com/lGEQosS9JE
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) March 15, 2020
Rahul Gandhi had attacked Modi government on the issue earlier also referring to the Madhya Pradesh political crisis for his party.
In a tweet, he said, “Hey PMOIndia, while you were busy destabilising an elected Congress Govt, you may have missed noticing the 35% crash in global oil prices. Could you please pass on the benefit to Indians by slashing petrol prices to under 60 per litre? Will help boost the stalled economy.”
The government has hiked excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 3 per litre on Saturday. It is calculated that this hike will help the government to garner about Rs 39,000 crore additional revenue.
In 2014-15 too, the government had decided not to pass on the gains due to slash in international oil prices.
As per the notification issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs, special excise duty on petrol was hiked by Rs 2 to Rs 8 per litre, and to Rs 4 a litre from Rs 2 in case of diesel. Road cess was also raised by Rs 1 per litre each on petrol and diesel to Rs 10.