People's Democracy

Protest Petrol Price Hike

The Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, All India Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party issued the following statement on May 15, 2011.

BY increasing the price of petrol by Rs 5 a litre, the UPA government has given another cruel blow to the people who are already suffering from all-round price rise. After the deregulation of petrol pricing, there has been more or less a monthly increase in petrol prices. But since January 2011 no increase in petrol prices was announced by the oil companies. Obviously, the government had directed them not to do so, keeping in view the assembly elections in five states.

Immediately after the elections, this steep increase in prices has been announced. This itself shows that the hike in the price of petrol is politically manipulated. The UPA government refuses to restructure the ad valorem tax structure on import of petro products. If the cess revenues earned by the government due to rise in international prices is returned to oil companies, then there would be no need to hike the prices and burden the aam admi.

The people are not going to take this cynical policy which leads to increased inflation and price rise, quietly. The Left parties call upon all their units to mobilise the people and organise protests against this fresh attack and demand a reversal of the deregulation policy.

Signatories to the statement are the CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan, AIFB general secretary Debabrata Biswas and RSP secretary Abani Roy.