Left parties to hold countrywide protests on diesel price hike

CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said in Kolkata that the Left will hold talks with other parties on organising a "common movement" against the decision that will hit common man "badly" while his party will hold protests in the states.

A CPI(M) Polit Bureau statement termed the government move a "gigantic fraud" and said the hike will have a cascading inflationary impact imposing greater burdens on the already suffering people.

It also rejected as a "patent falsehood" the government reasoning that such hikes were inevitable because of the burgeoning losses of oil companies, claiming that the account books of ONGC, Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum were showing profits in hundreds of crores.

CPI termed the decisions as "retrogade and anti-people" with its National Secretary D Raja claiming the decision will further increase hardship of the common people. "Government should not go ahead," he said.

Forward Bloc said in a statement it will organise protests and sought the support of like-minded parties to organise joint mass action against the "unjustifiable act" of the government. It alleged the "inflated accounts of under recoveries" of oil companies were an attempt to fool people.

Targeting Trinamool Congress, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat told PTI that the party was using the absence of its Minister Mukul Roy in the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs meeting, which took the decision, as a "tool of convenience" to avoid criticism.

"It is hypocrisy and double standard. They are running with the hare and hunting with the hounds," she said. (More)