BENGALURU: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has come down heavily on the BJP government for giving an “electric shock” to people of Karnataka by increasing the power tariff for the “third time in the last 18 months”.
AAP Karnataka convenor Prithvi Reddy said the BJP government has already increased the rates twice in the last 18 months — once in November 2020, and then in June 2021 even as the AAP government in New Delhi gave free electricity to 80 per cent of consumers there.
“The third increase in power bill is happening when people are suffering from the effects of lockdowns, curfews and prices of gas, oil, petrol etc. skyrocketing. It is clear that they are pick-pocketing the citizens at every opportunity, while taking no steps on corruption,” said Reddy.
AAP Bengaluru president Mohan Dasari pointed out that the Karnataka government stated that it was increasing rates by 35 paise per unit of which 27 paise per unit was to recover Rs 1,700 crore loss in the financial year 2021. “The government gave no relief to consumers during the pandemic; they only postponed the date of their rate increase from April 2020 to November 2020. During this time, power costs should have been much lower, as the price of coal had come down significantly,” he said.
Prakash Nedungadi, vice-president, Outreach, AAP, Bengaluru, accused the BJP government of being a “rich man’s government” and blamed them for “paying more money to big energy suppliers like Adani Power”.