Congress stages protests as petrol nears `100/litre
On a day the price of petrol in Hyderabad reached about `99.31 per litre, the Congress on Friday staged protests at petrol pumps across the state against the spiralling prices of petrol and diesel. Party leaders including Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, MPs A. Revanth Reddy, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, MLAs and key leaders participated in the demonstrations at their respective places.
Addressing the agitators at a petrol pump near Secretariat, Uttam Kumar Reddy demanded that the Central and state governments reduce fuel prices and ease the burden on common people. He said the price of petrol had crossed `100 per litre in several places. He said the prices of petrol were hiked by `25 and diesel by `23.90 in just one year.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has got the dubious distinction of raising the prices of petrol and diesel 43 times in one year. The TRS government at the state level has also pushed the burden on people by raising the VAT (value added tax),” he said.
He said the retail price of LPG refills had doubled, from around `410 in 2014 to around `850. He recalled that during the Congress-led UPA government, the total tax collected on petrol and diesel in 2013 was `52,537 crore. In 2014, the Modi government collected more than `72,000 crore in the form of taxes on petrol and diesel, he said adding that excise collections were over `3 lakh crore in the year 2020 alone.
Wearing flowers on their ears symbolically, to show they were being made fools of, Congress activists raised slogans against the state and the Central governments. AICC spokesperson Dasoju Sravan, former PCC president Ponnala Laxmaiah, former MP Anjan Kumar Yadav and PCC leader B. Kishan participated in the protest.
Revanth Reddy, TPCC vice-president, participated in a protest at Ghatkesar and said he was worried over the increasing prices of petrol and diesel as the poor and middle-class people were facing problems in their daily life over spending money on petrol from their daily wages. He said that millions had lost their jobs since last year due to the Coronavirus crisis but the Modi government had increased the price of petrol by `25 on petrol and `26 on diesel in 10 months.
He said the cost of petrol was `35 but Modi was levying `35 per litre tax.