VIJAYAWADA: Minister for civil supplies Kodali Venkateswara Rao alias Nani said on Tuesday that the BJP is sucking the blood of the people by sharply increasing fuel prices despite the fall in crude oil rates in the international market.
The minister objected to the protests by Telugu Desam at the petrol bunks and said the TD conspired to create disturbances in the state and this was a part of such a push. He said it is for the BJP government at the Centre to further decrease the fuel prices. He challenged TD president and former chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to stage agitations against the Centre instead of targeting the YSRC government.
Nani said the limited slash of fuel prices by the Centre a week ago was only an eyewash. The BJP was defeated in most by-election and it lost the deposits in Andhra Pradesh.
“The Centre has increased the prices of petrol and diesel despite the fall in crude oil rates. When fuel rates have gone up to Rs 110 from Rs 70 per litre, the slash was of Rs 10 only. BJP leaders have been claiming this as a big help to the people, but the common man’s plight remained the same.”
He said the Centre is showing the excise duty at Rs 47,000 crore, to reduce the share of the state governments besides imposing taxes of Rs 3,50,000 crore and looting the people every year.
Minister Nani said the BJP had lost deposits in both the Badvel and Tirupati by-polls, and proved it was no force here. “Yet, it is playing cheap politics by creating stirs between castes and religions.” He said the BJP was defeated for the reason it was engaged in a malicious propaganda against the state government’s social welfare initiatives.
Responding to the TD's agitation at petrol bunks, the minister said the previous TD government had imposed a surcharge of Rs 4 and later decreased it to Rs 2 on the fuel prices and looted almost Rs 10,000 crore from the public over a period of nearly five years. The YSRC government had only levied Rs 1 for repairing roads that were terribly neglected during the TD rule, he said.
The minister dared Naidu to hold a protest in Delhi, as the fuel prices are fixed by the Centre. The TD leaders' protests at petrol bunks are only to create law and order problems and irritate the government, he added.
