A protest was organised by the Left parties seeking withdrawal of the steep hike in petrol and diesel prices, at the Gandhi statue near the GVMC here on Tuesday.
CPI State assistant secretary J.V. Satyanarayana Murthy, CPI(M) district secretary K. Lokanadham, CPI(M) city secretary B. Ganga Rao, CPI city secretary M. Pydiraju, CPI-ML leader Ganesh Panda, New Democracy leader Kondayya and IFTU leader Venkateswarlu were among those who participated.
Addressing the gathering, the leaders said that at a time when the crude oil price was falling globally, the prices of petrol and diesel were being increased by the Central government on a daily basis for the past 20 days. The common man was already overburdened by financial problems due to loss of income and employment as a result of COVID-19.
They condemned the Modi government for additional burden on the common people in the form of hike in the prices of diesel and petrol. They said the Centre had collected ₹3.5 lakh crore from the common people by increasing the taxes on oil but gave concessions to the tune of ₹45,000 crore to corporates. The Modi government had increased the tax on a litre of petrol from ₹9 to ₹33 and on diesel from ₹3.50 to ₹32 in the last six years. The hike in the prices of petrol and diesel was having a cascading effect on the prices of all essential commodities and causing untold hardship to the public.
They alleged that though the ₹20 lakh crore relief package for the lockdown period, announced by the Centre, has not reached the people, they were being taxed indirectly by the government. The demanded rollback of the hike and appealed to the State government to reduce the VAT to provide relief to the people.
