Sonia Gandhi slams centre as fuel prices reach all time high

Last updated on January 11th, 2021 at 05:08 am

Sonia Gandhi slams centre: On Thursday, incumbent Congress President Sonia Gandhi condemned central government for handling of the country’s fuel pricing, which reached all time high in the very first month on the new year. She highlighted how the petrol prices, which have been going up frequently for the past several months, crossed even the highest bar in Delhi, despite fall in global crude prices.

Price of crude oil in the international market is about $51 which implies that petrol should cost around Rs 23 a litre but the current price rest at more than double. It has reached its highest mark in 73 years. She highlighted that the benefit of drop in fuel prices which should have gone to the consumers is being taken away by the government.

The senior Congress leader said that the central government, led by Narendra Modi, should bring down the petrol and diesel prices to the level that exited during the UPA regime. She also urged centre to roll back all the three farm laws, providing an overall relief to the country’s population.

She added, “In the last six years, the government collected 19,00,000 crore as excise duty from the people. Not only this, the rising costs of the domestic LPG has also disturbed the home budget.”

After the recent hike in prices, petrol prices in Delhi went up by 23 paise a litre on Thursday. It was second successive day rise in fuel price, to Rs 84.20 a litre from Rs 83.97. Delhi’s previous highest mark was Rs 84, which the city witnessed on 4 October 2018. In the other metro cities also prices went up in similar manner including Mumbai, where prices increased to Rs 90.83 a litre (only 51 paise short of all-time high level of Rs 91.34 hit on October 4, 2018), Chennai, where the petrol price reached is Rs 86.96 a litre, and, Kolkatta where it went up to Rs 85.68, floating closer to its record level of Rs 85.80 a litre.

Sonia Gandhi said, “In independent India, the country is at crossroads as farmers are on the Delhi borders for 44 days for their genuine demands while the unbridled, insensitive government is breaking the backbone of the farmers and middle class.”

“Due to covid, all around the economy is already in shambles while the Modi government is putting money into their coffers and making out opportunity in pandemic,” she added.