People's Democracy

PETRO HIKE

Rebuff This Latest Attack On People 

A view of CPI(M) protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi on June 6, 2006

  
THE Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) strongly opposes the hike in petrol and diesel prices announced by the government. This fifth successive hike in petroleum products prices in a little over two years is unconscionable. 
  
The steep increase of Rs 4 for petrol and Rs 2 for diesel is going to impose an unbearable burden on the people who are already suffering from price rise of all essential commodities. 
  
The increase in the price of diesel will affect transportation costs, farmers and have a cascading affect on inflation. 
  
The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) demands that the government rescind the price hike. It calls upon all Party units to immediately protest this new attack. The Left parties have already decided to consult all other parties to announce a one-day all India protest day. 

 (PB Statement - June 05, 2006) 

COUNTRY-WIDE PROTESTS 

The CPI(M) Delhi state committee held a demonstration at Parliament Street on June 6, 2006 to protest against the hike in petrol and diesel prices announced by the central government. Over two hundred women and men participated in this demonstration called at short notice. 
  
The demonstrators were addressed by central secretariat member Nilotpal Basu, CITU secretary Dipanker Mukherjee, and CPI(M) Delhi state secretary P M S Grewal. The speakers condemned the petro-price hike as being unjustified and anti-people and said it will add to the already spiralling inflation and compound the woes of the poor and other working people. They lambasted the government for the justification it was giving for increasing petroleum prices. While heavy duties are levied on petroleum products burdening the common man, the government exempted private exporters of refined petroleum products from all customs duties. A reversal of both these policies, as suggested by the Left parties, would render these price hikes unnecessary and help in price stabilisation of petroleum products in the long run, they underlined. 
  
The union finance minister, P Chidambaram came in for special criticism for his refusal to accept the recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee that suggested ways and means to avoid increase in petro prices and ensure price stabilisation. 
  
The Left and other political parties as well as trade unions have called for nationwide protests against the petroleum products hike on June 13. The speakers urged the people to join these protests in large numbers. The demonstration concluded with burning of an effigy of finance minister, Chidambaram. 
  
Similar protest actions were organised on the same day by the CPI(M) in Ghaziabad and Noida as well. In Noida the protestors burnt an effigy of the finance minister and blocked traffic at Labour Chowk. In Ghaziabad the protest action was held at the old bus stand. 
  
Reports have come in of similar protest actions by CPI(M) units from across the country. In Vijayawada, AP the CPI(M) activists staged a rail roko against the price hike. In Allahabad effigies of finance minister were burnt. (Detailed report on protest actions will be published next week - Ed)  

IN BENGAL

CPI(M) protest rally in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal

In Bengal, in inclement weather – it rained throughout the morning and afternoon all over the state – protest demonstrations marked June 6 to raise a strong disapproval of the UPA government’s decision to hike the prices of petrol and diesel.   

The price of petrol per litre in Kolkata will now be Rs 50.97 and that of diesel, Rs 34.87. The effect of the price hike will have a cascading effect on the prices of commodities of common consumption in particular, especially those that are driven by the run of the transport system, rail, trucks, mini-trucks, and three-wheeler ‘tempos.’   

Held under the aegis of the Bengal Left Front, the programme was a great success with people from every section of the toiling masses, from workers and kisans to students, youth, and women, coming forward to populate the processions and rallies that loudly and firmly decried the latest anti-people move of the UPA government. 
  
Earlier, addressing a media conference at Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan, state secretary of the CPI(M), and chairman of the Bengal Left Front, Biman Basu said that the people would never take lying down the move by the union government to shift more and more burden on the already groaning shoulders of the common man. 
  
Drawing attention to the rejection by the Congress-run UPA government to listen to the valid suggestion of the Left parties for avoiding placement of additional burden on the people, Biman Basu said that simply be reducing the existing cess and by cutting down on the advertisement splurge that the oil industry witnessed, it would have possible to avoid raising the price of petrol and diesel. 
  
Biman Basu expressed anguish at the manner the same UPA government was found to be ready and willing to provide crores of rupees of concession to the speculators of the share market.