The Communist Party of India has said the hike in petrol price could be a prelude to an upward revision of the prices of diesel and other petroleum products. The party called for a rollback of the hike.
Describing the increase unjustifiable and a huge blow to the common man, CPI national secretary D. Raja said it would further push the prices of essential commodities.
Raising the petrol price just 24 hours after Parliament was adjourned was unethical and undemocratic. It indicated that the government was insensitive to people's sufferings, Mr. Raja said.
The government has flouted basic parliamentary norms by announcing a back-breaking increase in petrol price the day after the budget session of Parliament concluded, the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIADWA) said.
At a time when crude prices in the international market had fallen sharply, this was nothing but a criminal act. No amount of shirking of responsibility by the government and passing the buck on oil companies can whitewash this, a statement issued by the AIDWA said.
This hike was the highest ever and it would lead to another round of increase in prices of all commodities. There was every reason to believe that the hike in the prices of other petroleum products, including cooking gas, was in the offing. Increased rates of transportation and electricity were bound to follow, making life for the poor and the middle class truly unbearable, the AIDWA said.
The Centre of Indian Trade Unions denounced hefty hike. It said the increase was the most cruel and atrocious onslaught on people already reeling under price rise.
“This happens to be the 18th price hike of petro products under the UPA-II regime since 2009 as well as steepest of all,” a CITU statement said.
The National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) strongly condemned the hike, saying: “It is atrocious and unacceptable. The cascading impact of this hike will put the people, who are already reeling under the uncontrolled price rise of essential commodities, into more miseries,” Annie Raja of NFIW said in a statement.
The UPA, which decontrolled the price of petrol, was playing the role of an onlooker and doing nothing but backstabbing the aam aadmi and aurat of this country, the NFIW said. It demanded that the government urgently intervene and ask oil companies to withdraw the hike.
