Accusing the government of kneeling down before market forces and corporate houses, the CPI today slammed the hike in fuel prices and demanded its immediate rollback.
“Government’s explanation on hiking prices in as insult to the people. They had done it immediately after the Assembly polls. Oil companies hiked petrol prices and now the government hikes diesel prices,” the CPI National Secretary, Mr D. Raja, said.
Terming the hike as unjustified, he said: “The government has always treated the oil sector as a revenue generating sector by burdening the common people. There is no transparency in this sector, no one knows what spot price of crude is and the real component of taxes.”
Accusing the government of allowing corporate houses to plunder indigenous resources like natural gas, he said this has been recently exposed by the KG basin gas scandal.
“The Supreme Court has said that natural gases are national assets. How does the government gives this national asset on a platter to corporate houses. Last year Parliament had passed a unanimous resolution that government would take steps to curb inflation. One year has passed and the government has failed to control prices,” he said.
Mr Raja said food inflation is “unprecedentedly” high and now the fuel price hikes will have cascading effect on the prices of food items.
“The Manmohan Singh government, though duly elected by the people, is kneeling down before market forces and corporate houses. The hike is totally unjustified and should be rolled back,” he said.
The CPI(M) yesterday said that Left parties will organise nationwide protests against the “completely unacceptable” hike in the prices of diesel, kerosene and cooking gas.