Left activists continue protest against fuel price hike across the country

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. he 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'.

HIMACHAL PRADESH
Despite inclement weather on Monday, the CPIM after holding a procession through the Lower Bazar, in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh the demonstration culminated into a public meeting at Naaz, close to The Mall Road.

Ridiculing the congress slogan of ‘Congress ka haath, aam admi key saath’, Tikender Panwar, CPIM member secretariat said that the party that had professed to work for the common man has turned the hand around to strangulate him with hiking certain petro products substantially.

Hiking the prices of diesel by Rs 3, kerosene by Rs 2 and LPG gas cylinder by Rs 50 has broken the back of the ordinary citizen, he said.

The party has decided to intensify the agitations to build a strong movement for exposing the sinister policies of the congress party, he added.

TRIPURA

Life in all spheres of the state got completely paralyzed today in Tripura where the people spontaneously responded to the dawn-to-dusk Bandh called the Tripura Left Front Committee protesting against the recent hike of prices of fuel by the UPA-II Government at the centre.
All the markets, commercial centres remained closed. No student, teaching staff and employees turned up in any school, college and university. All types of vehicular traffic remained off the road and the rail did not move in the state today. All private and Government offices looked to be a solitary place because of no staff attended for duty today.
While hailing the people for rendering overwhelming respond to the Bandh call, Tripura Left Front Committee in a statement said, this irrational price hike is an attack on all sections of people. This hike shall cause unbearable percolating affect to all sections of the people of the state particularly, because of the state’s remote location and its dependence on road transpiration for all essential commodities. So it is a united protest voiced by the people of the state in line with the protest throughout the country.

If the hike of the price on diesel, K. oil and cooking gas is not rolled back and the people’s protest is not honored, the people will have to prepare themselves for a bigger struggle in the coming days, the Left Front urged. Normal life was paralysed in Tripura today during a dawn-to-dusk bandh called by the ruling Left Front to protest hike in the prices of petroleum products.

Traffic was off the roads. Shops, markets, schools, colleges and the Tripura University were closed. Attendance at Civil Secretariat, offices and banks was almost nil, officials said. The police said picketers took to streets since morning but no untoward incident was reported. Security was strengthened in the state and the police and paramilitary forces were on patrol in different parts of the state.

PUDUCHERRY

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Monday held a protest outside the head post office condemning the hike in prices of diesel, kerosene and LPG and demanded an immediate rollback of the hike.

Puducherry secretary of the CPI (M) V. Perumal said that since the UPA came to power for the second time in 2009, fuel prices have been increased 10 times. The hike in prices was a blow to the people, who were already suffering from escalating prices of essential commodities.

Condemning the acts of oil companies, which were putting up advertisements persuading people to bear with the “small increase” in fuel prices, he said that such advertisements were insensitive to the plight of the people.

While corporate companies in the country got huge tax benefits in the form of waivers, the government was trying to bring down fiscal deficit by reducing subsidies provided to the poor, he said.