EARLY TIMES REPORT
Kathua, July 4: Maintaining social distancing and wearing masks, activists of Congress party today staged a protest rally against hike in petrol and diesel prices.
The protest was held at Rajpura and the activists submitted a memorandum addressed to the President of India through Tehsildar Rajpura.
The protest on 6th consecutive day in Kathua is a part of AICC nationwide protest against increasing petrol and diesel prices due to heavy increase in excise duty by the central government at a time when crude oil is trading at its lowest price in the world over,”. The protest was led by senior Congress leader & former MLC Subash Gupta and Senior Congress Leader & Ex MLA Girdhari lal Choltra beside others carrying placards demanding roll back of hiked prices of fuels.
Senior Congress leader Subash Gupta said that PM called himself Janta Ka Chowkidar, but the oil companies have been making profits and the PM has failed to provide any relief to the people.
He said, what the Centre has done with Rs 18 lakh Crore earned by hiking the excise duty on fuel in the past six years. He said it was because of the “faulty” Centre government policies that for the first time in the country’s history prices of diesel was higher than that of petrol. “The country’s GDP has hit the bottom. It is the lowest in 6 years and unemployment is on the rise. Still, fuel prices have been increased. “The hike in diesel prices will directly affect farmers, who are already under debt, during the paddy season” he said.
Girdhari lal Choltra said that the crude oil had mounted to $125 a barrel during the UPA government, but the government under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could keep the diesel-petrol prices under control. Today the crude oil prices have dropped to $50 a barrel, despite of which the prices are scaling new high every day,” he said.The Central government must control petrol and diesel prices.
On one hand people are already distressed with Covid-19 and now this further price rise is staring in peoples’ face. Prominent among others those who participated are Dewan Chand khajuria, Parveen Bhagat, BL kandlay, Ramesh Kundal, Ramesh Verma councillor, Som Verma, Bhagwan Sharma, Ganesh Sharma, Mahesh Sharma, Suresh Basotra, Vijay Sharma , Kamal Gupta, Master Ved Nath, Master Ram Krishan, Harbhajan Singh Saini. |
