NEW DELHI, Nov 5 (UNI) The Left parties today threatened to launch a nation wide protest against the hike in the prices of petroleum products if the UPA government did not review the "sudden and highly unjustified" decision.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had late last night raised the retail prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas in a bid to align prices with global trends.
"The UPA government has done a wrong thing, It is not acceptable to the Lef" the CPI(M), CPI and the All India Forward Bloc said here.
Prices of LPG took a huge Rs 20 hit from yesterday midnight followed by cost of petrol going up in the Capital by Rs 2.19 per litre and diesel by Rs 2.12 litre, although hike in kerosene was spared.
The CPI(M) and the CPI in separate statements demanded a review of the steep hike in petrol products, while asking their frontal organisations to hold nation wide protests against the Government's decision.
CPI(M) Politburo member and CITU president M K Pandhe and Forward Bloc General Secretary and MP Debabrat Biswas told UNI that the Congress led government should have avoided the hike.
The Government chose to announce the hike of its own and did not consult them on the issue, they said.
The Left parties asked the UPA Government to review its decision saying the burden should have been absorbed by the oil companies instead of shifting it on to the common man.
The hike comes at a time when the international prices of the crude oil had fallen to 49 dollars from 56 dollars a barrel, they said.
The Left parties said they were constantly asking the government to meet the hike in the international oil prices by reducing the customs and excise duties on them.
The decision to dismantle the administrative price mechanism (APM) was accompanied by an assurance that duties on all subsidised petroleum products would be reduced to zero per cent while the rest would be between zero to 5 per cent, which has not been done.
Had that been done there would not have been any need for increasing oil prices, the Left parties said.
Instead of burdening the common people, the impact of international price hike should have been absorbed by the oil companies, whose profits had soared due to the dismantling of the APM.
The Left said not raising the price of kerosene was not a big concession since it was not imported.
Pande and Biswas said the hike in the price of LPG cylinder by Rs 20 alongwith a monthly increase of Rs 5 will affect the budgets of millions of households as the "rise is a big one".
The hike would further inflation, they said, adding that the Government was ignoring the concerns of the Left parties.
