BENGALURU: With fuel prices touching unprecedented levels, Congress is set to launch a massive five-day ‘100 Not Out’ campaign from Friday. Opposition leaders Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar will lead the protests, to be held outside 5,000 petrol bunks across the state, and highlight that petrol price has soared to Rs 100 per litre and diesel is at Rs 92 per litre.
KPCC president D K Shivakumar called on party leaders and workers to protest all across the state. Siddaramaiah said the price of fuel has been hiked by about Rs 30 over the past 12 months. He also pointed out that the government had again hiked power tariff, adding to the woes of the common man, already burdened by job losses and salary cuts.
Former minister Krishna Byre Gowda said that fuel prices have crossed Rs 100, “not because of international crude rates but because of draconian taxes on fuel by the Modi sarkar’’.MLAs Priyank Kharge and Rizwan Arshad also expressed unhappiness about the burden on the ordinary citizen, at a time when international crude oil is at $70 per barrel. They pointed out that when their party was in power, crude was $130 per barrel, but the price of petrol in India was Rs 70 per litre, and by that yardstick, should be Rs 45-50 per litre now.
They also brandished statistics to show how the BJP-led NDA government had hiked tax on petrol by 357 per cent, and tax on diesel by 920 per cent. Prices had been brought down marginally in March and April, when elections to five states were in progress, they added. Comparing the price of petrol in India to that in other countries, Congress leaders said a litre of petrol costs Rs 51 in Pakistan and Rs 59.64 in Sri Lanka. While unemployment is at a peak and crores of Indians have lost jobs, and incomes of Indians have declined by up to 17 per cent, the government is “cruelly” hiking prices, they added.