Keeping up with his daily criticism of the  Centre, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday again took a swipe at the Modi government for the rising fuel prices and urged people to join the protest against it.

Gandhi took to Twitter to show his resentment and stated, “Come and join #SpeakUpAgainstFuelHike campaign.”

This came after the state-run oil marketing companies raised the prices of petrol and diesel on Monday, a day after there was no hike in rates that were increasing continuously for three weeks.

Diesel price on Monday scaled a new high after prices were hiked for the 22nd time in just over three weeks, taking the cumulative increase to Rs 11.14 per litre. While, petrol price was increased by 5 paise per litre and diesel 13 paise a litre across the country, according to a price notification of state oil marketing companies.

The Wayanad MP also shared a video wherein a person could be heard saying that the government is “rubbing salt on the wounds of people” by increasing the prices at a time when people are either unemployed or not receiving salaries.

“Amid coronavirus pandemic and tensions with China, the Centre has left the common man to fend for themselves. It is looting the country by increasing the price of petrol and diesel from the past 21 days. The poor and middle class people are helpless,” the video narrated.

The video, shared by Rahul Gandhi, went on to urge the people to raise their voice against the hike, so that it lands on the “deaf ears of the government”. The narrator asked countrymen to share the video of disgruntled people with the #SpeakUpAgainstFuelHike hashtag on their social media handle from 10 am onwards on Monday.

“At the outset, the Congress party has also decided to launch a five-day protest, starting June 30, against fuel price hike in each block of the country. The party would also hold protests, between 11 am and 12 noon on Monday in front of the Central government offices against the fuel price hike,” said senior Congress leader KC Venugopal on Sunday.

Earlier, on June 24, Gandhi had taken a swipe at the Modi government’s Unlock 1 move saying it has resulted in a sharp increase in the Coronavirus cases as well as hiked the petrol and diesel prices.

“The Modi government has ‘unlocked’ the Corona epidemic and petrol-diesel prices,” tweeted Gandhi  with a graph showing a spike in Coronavirus cases and fuel prices.

In Delhi, a litre of petrol now comes for Rs 80.43 per litre as compared to Rs 80.38 earlier. Diesel rates have been increased to Rs 80.53 per litre from Rs Rs 80.40. In Mumbai, petrol price went up from Rs 87.14 per litre to Rs 87.19, while diesel was hiked to Rs 78.83 from Rs 78.71.

While the diesel rates have been hiked for the 22nd time since June 7, petrol price has been raised on 21 occasions.

The cumulative increase since the oil companies started the cycle on June 7 now totals to Rs 9.17 for petrol and Rs 11.14 in diesel.