Fuel price sparks protests

INDIA: BUSINESSESS, SCHOOLS SHUT DOWN AS NATION BLOCKS ROADS, RAILWAYS

Modi accuses opposition of ‘unnecessarily politicising’ high prices, weak currency.

Bhubaneswar

Nationwide protests against record high petrol and diesel prices shut down businesses, government offices and schools in many parts of India yesterday, and in some places protesters blocked railways and roads and vandalised vehicles.

Gearing up for a general election less than nine months away and provincial polls expected in some states later this year, opposition parties banded together to organise their first protest action in a joint campaign to stir discontent with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

Opposition Congress party activists marched, blocked roads and disrupted trains in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, while other parties protested outside the offices of oil marketing companies.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi blamed the higher fuel prices and a falling rupee currency on the prime minister’s policies.

“The rupee has never been weaker in 70 years of independence,” Gandhi said. “Farmers, labourers see no light at the end of the tunnel. Only 15-20 big industrialists are prospering.”

Protesters burnt tyres and blocked traffic in the north eastern state of Assam. Several people were arrested, officials said.

Television footage showed protesters breaking car and bus windows in Patna, the capital of the northern state of Bihar.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused its opponents of “unnecessarily politicising” high fuel prices and the weakening currency, which it blamed on external factors such as Turkey’s economic crisis, which affected emerging markets.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, the country’s law minister, condemned the incidents of violence. “The BJP strongly believes that despite some momentary difficulties, the people of India do not support