Youth Congress rallies against fuel price hike

From A Correspondent

Tura, Sept 21: The Meghalaya Pradesh Youth Congress (MPYC) took out a rally here on Thursday against the BJP-led NDA government for hiking prices of fuel and demanded immediate rollback of Central Excise on petrol and diesel.

Beginning the rally from Congress Bhavan, the rallyists marched through the streets of the town and chanted anti-Modi slogans. They said the hike in petroleum price has affected prices of essential commodities like vegetable, dal, onion, milk, groceries, etc.

The MPYC attributed the price rise of fuel to the “taxes” imposed by the Central government. The Youth Congress activists lamented that despite low crude oil price in the intertiol market, Modi-government has failed to stabilise fuel price, which has affected the people.

“The Central government has been consistently hiking prices by levying taxes to increase its revenue,” alleged MPYC president Richard Marak.

“The total levy on diesel is Rs 17.33 per litre and Rs 21.48 per litre on petrol today as against Rs 3.43 per litre for diesel and Rs 9.20 per litre for petrol in November 2014. This is close to a hike of 400% and 133% on diesel and petrol respectively,” the MPYC leader said, even as the rallyists carried placards and raised anti-Modi slogans.

Marak is of the view that the recent price spike is expected to result in enormous gains for petroleum companies which, while charging higher fuel prices, also benefited from lower crude rates.

“The BJP leaders were shouting, protesting and misled the people before when they were not in power. The global crude oil prices were very high during the Congress-led UPA government. But when the crude oil prices are at the lowest why are the fuel prices so high?” Marak asked.

The Youth Congress leader termed the move of the Centre as “robbery and loot in broad daylight”.

“We are not convinced by the BJP government’s rhetoric that high tax on petroleum products is important for generating funds for the poor and infrastructure,” Marak said.

Further terming demonetisation as “disaster” and GST as “loot” through high tax component on petroleum products, he alleged “The BJP is harassing the common man and killing the poor.”

“India is under dictatorship. The BJP-led NDA government is exploiting the people of India through taxes,” he added.