Sonia accuses govt of ‘profiteering’, asks PM to roll back fuel price hike
Accusing the government of “profiteering” of its people, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said there was no logic in hikes in fuel prices over the last 10 days and asked the government to roll it back immediately.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mrs Gandhi said: “I see no logic in why the government would even consider such a price increase at a time when the economic impact of Covid-19 is depriving millions of jobs and livelihood, devastating business bit and small, rapidly eroding the income of the middle class, even as farmers are struggling to sow the crop of the kharif season”.
Accusing the government of “profiteering” of its people, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday said there was no logic in hikes in fuel prices over the last 10 days and asked the government to roll it back immediately.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mrs Gandhi said: “I see no logic in why the government would even consider such a price increase at a time when the economic impact of COVID19 is depriving millions of jobs and livelihood, devastating business bit and small, rapidly eroding the income of the middle class, even as farmers are struggling to sow the crop of the kharif season”.
“Given that the international price of crude oil has fallen by approximate nine per cent over the last week (coming after a collapse of crude oil prices over the last few months), the government is doing nothing short of profiteering off its people — when they are down and out,” she said. The Congress president asked the government to immediately roll back hikes on fuel prices and pass the benefit of low crude oil prices to the citizens.
Terming the hikes as ill-advised, she claimed that the government was seeking to earn an additional revenue of nearly `2,60,000 crore and in the process saddling people with an additional burden that is “neither justified nor appropriate”.
Despite low oil prices over the last six years, the government’s revenues had been massively enriched by the cumulative increase in excise duty on petrol and diesel. “If ever there was a time to deploy these resources in the service of people, it is now,” she added.