Akhilesh Yadav criticises BJP govt over ‘reckless’ inflation in fuel prices

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Samajwadi party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday hit out at the BJP-led central government over what he described as ‘reckless’ inflation, accusing the centre of ‘robbing the people’ and ‘making them poor’ via surge in fuel prices. He further said that the "petroleum ministry should be shut down". "If no government regulations, administration or management can control this reckless hike in fuel prices, and if everything is up to the market then what is the use of petroleum ministry? These ministries should be shut down with immediate effect,” he wrote on Twitter in Hindi.

The opposition leader's attack comes as petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday told the Lok Sabha that hike in petrol prices in India are linked to the surge in international prices caused by the Ukraine war.

"We are not the only country impacted by the war," news agency ANI quoted Puri as saying. “The surge in fuel prices in India is 1/10th of the price hike in other countries. The prices in the US, UK, France, Germany and Spain have increased by 51 per cent, but in India the hike is merely 5 per cent,” Puri added. Earlier, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman also underlined that the price of fuel has shot up several times in the international market after the outbreak of the war, and hence the increase in fuel prices in India is unavoidable.

Though fuel prices remained unchanged for the third straight day on Saturday, there was a constant rise after a 4-month long hiatus that ended on March 22 after the BJP’s victory in the assembly elections in five states. Petrol and diesel prices were last hiked by 80 paise a litre on Wednesday, taking the total increase in rates in 16 days to ₹10 per litre.

The government has been continuously facing heat from the opposition parties over surge in fuel prices. Congress leaders have been accusing the BJP-led government of ‘tax-gouging’, ‘torturing the public’ and ‘profiteering’ over the fuel price surge. MPs from Shiv Sena, TMC, and other political outfits have also been attacking the central government for ‘filling their coffers’. India is 85 per cent dependent on imports for meeting its oil needs. Russia’s Ukraine invasion and escalating sanctions have hampered the oil flows across the globe.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)