Fuel Prices Hike – Cong Slams Centre, BJP Ducks for Cover, BRS Stays Quiet
Congress slams fuel price hike as anti-people, BJP cites global crisis and war-related pressures to justify increase
Hyderabad: Friday’s hike of petrol and diesel prices was stoutly defended, on expected lines, by the BJP in Telangana, while Congress castigated the decision. While these parties slugged it out on the impact of the fuel price hike, the third major party in the state, the BRS, maintained a studied silence on the matter.
The Congress strongly condemned the fuel price hike with TPCC president and MLC B. Mahesh Kumar Goud, and transport minister Ponnam Prabhakar slamming the decision.
Calling it an additional burden on common people already struggling with rising living costs, Mahesh Kumar said, “people are already reeling under the impact of rising prices of essential commodities and cooking gas. Instead of providing relief, the Modi government is breaking the backbone of ordinary people.”
Minister Prabhakar accused the Centre of deceiving people by deliberately postponing the hike until elections were completed in five states and hitting the people as soon as the process was completed.
He also slammed Union ministers G. Kishan Reddy and Bandi Sanjay Kumar for repeatedly assuring the public that fuel prices would not be increased. Recalling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s criticism of the UPA government over minor fuel hikes in the past, he said the BJP government had now imposed steep increases citing war related issues as excuses. “People are being crushed under rising costs,” he said.
While the Congress made it clear where it stood on the fuel price hike, the BRS leadership for reasons best known to it, kept silent on the issue. None from the top rungs of the party, its president K. Chandrashekar Rao, its working president K.T. Rama Rao, or others, came forward to state their party's stand on the issue.
Meanwhile, Kishan Reddy sought to defend the hike saying the decision “was unavoidable in the face of global crisis and ongoing wars.” The government, he said, alone cannot shoulder the entire burden. Trying to make it appear as if the blow was not hard on people, Kishan Reddy said “compared with roughly 40 percent rises in countries such as the United States, Germany and Japan,” the "present increase of prices in India was a minimal, necessary step.”
He argued that the move was taken in the national interest to protect government revenues so flagship welfare programmes, such as free 5 kg rice for the poor, infrastructure projects, and direct cash transfers to farmers can continue uninterrupted. On criticism of the hike, Kishan Reddy said “some opposition parties are stoking public sentiment with false propaganda on the issue.”
