Condemning the continued hike in fuel prices and the “failure” of the Union government to check this, members of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) staged a demonstration in Dharwad on Saturday.
Burning an effigy, the protesters alleged that instead of mitigating the sufferings of citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centre had increased fuel prices. Addressing the protesters, Dharwad district committee member of SUCI(C) Laxman Jadagannavar stated that while on one hand the COVID-19-induced lockdown had crippled the economy and affected the common man badly, the Centre was putting additional burden on them. “What is even worse is that the BJP-led Union government is using the lockdown to fleece citizens and is enforcing anti-labour policies to help the corporate sector,” he said.
Mr. Laxman said that in the international market, the price of crude oil has gone down to $41 per barrel, which would mean Indians should get one litre of petrol for ₹20. But adding the cess, taxes and profit margin for oil companies, the Centre could fix the price at ₹28, he said.
But instead, it has allowed petrol prices to go beyond ₹83, which is three times more than the actual cost. In rural areas too, the price of kerosene has been increased by 55%, he said. However, instead of helping the commoners, the Centre has written off bad loans to the tune of ₹68,000 crore in nationalised banks, he said.
The protesters raised slogans saying that privatisation was going on unabated in the fields of agriculture, insurance, railways and mining.
