New Delhi: Left Front activists led by
CPI-M leader Brinda Karat on Monday marched from Jantar Mantar
towards the Parliament to protest the "anti-people" price hike
in petroleum products.
The protesters vowed to intensify their agitation
against the UPA government before they were stopped at the
Parliament Street by the police.
Brinda said the move to hike the prices of diesel,
kerosene and LPG betrayed the UPA government's preference for
the "khaas admi" as against the "aam admi", whose cause it
claims to champion.
The activists from CPI, CPI-M, All India Forward Bloc
(AIFB) and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), who gathered
at Jantar Mantar, marched to demand a withdrawal of the price
hike.
Questioning the timing of the hike that came closely
after elections in four states, Brinda also said that crude
prices at the international level were actually coming down
and the oil and gas firms in India were making huge profits.
The CPI-M leader said the entire argument of 'under
recoveries' by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was
"notional" rather than "actual". She also sought clarification
over what the cost of production of oil products was and how
much was the tax.
She also attacked the Trinamool Congress over its
unwillingness to compel the government to give up ad valorem
taxes, and termed a reduction of VAT on LPG in West Bengal as
a "cosmetic show".
PTI
First Published: Monday, June 27, 2011, 23:14