Bhubaneswar: The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) Sunday announced it would stage a five-hour hartal from 7am across Orissa Monday to protest the steep hike in the price of petrol, diesel and LPG despite a slide in crude oil price in the international market.
Hitting out at the BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre for the fuel price hike, senior BJD leaders told mediapersons that the five-hour state-wide hartal would be observed from 7am to 12pm.
Apart from the state capital of Bhubaneswar, BJD activists and supporters would stage peaceful agitation in all district, sub-division and block headquarters, BJD vice-presidents Prasanna Acharya and Usha Devi and general secretary Sanjay Das Burma said.
Demonstrations would also be held in front of offices of the Central government, they said adding the agitation would continue till the Centre withdraws the automatic fuel pricing mechanism.
However, some emergency services will be exempted from the purview of hartal, which will be a ‘‘peaceful affair’’, Das Burma said.
Criticising Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, known as the most prominent face of the saffron party in the state, Acharya said, “Between April 2014 and January 2016, the excise duty on petrol has gone up by 108 per cent while the duty on diesel was hiked by 288.09 per cent. Is it the Ache Din, Modi government was talking about?”
Reacting strongly to the Centre’s stand that it has no control on fuel price mechanism, Acharya said, “The Centre’s oil firms are not East India Company. Why, can’t the Centre control the prices of petroleum products?. If they can utilise corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds of the companies for the benefit of a particular party, why cannot they intervene in the prices?”
He said the price of crude oil, which was $108.37 per barrel in the international market in June 2014, had come down to $49.96 per barrel. The BJD claimed that VAT on petrol and diesel in Orissa (27.26%) was lower than the taxes in BJP-ruled states Maharashtra (32.07%), Uttarakhand (35.98%), Madhya Pradesh (39.75%), Jharkhand (34.74%), Rajasthan (32.71%) and Uttar Pradesh (33%).
Meanwhile, state BJP spokesperson Sajjan Sharma has hit back at the BJD saying the party has called for the hartal only to cover up its failures, which was evident from the Bomikhal flyover collapse.
Post News Network
