Middle class, poor pay for gifts crony capitalists get, says Rahul Gandhi after fuel price hiked for 9th straight day

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New Delhi: Launching a scathing attack on the Centre over increase in petrol and diesel prices, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday (June 15) said middle class and the poor pay for the gifts crony capitalists get. He also used a graph to show that prices of petrol and diesel were low in May 2014 under the UPA despite high crude cost globally, but the NDA government raised the excise duty on petrol by 258.47 per cent and on diesel by 819.94 per cent as on June 15, 2020.

Rahul also used a hashtag in Hindi that translates to "Shame on a government that loots".

The statement from the former Congress president comes after oil companies raised petrol and diesel prices for the ninth consecutive day on Monday 48 paise and 23 paise a litre respectively. 

Rahul added on May 16, 2014, when the Congress-led UPA was in power, the international crude oil price was USD 107.09 per barrel, while it is USD 40.66 on June 15, 2020, when the NDA is in government. He said that despite the crude costing USD 66.43 less per barrel, petrol and diesel prices now are higher than what they were during Congress regime. 

The Congress has been demanding that petrol and diesel prices be brought under the ambit of GST, besides rollback of excise duty hikes on petrol, diesel to bring down their prices.