Announcing plans to launch an intensive campaign against the latest increase in fuel prices announced by the Centre, Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member and West Bengal Left Front Committee chairman Biman Bose said on Sunday that if Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was against the decision, she should have written to the Prime Minister on the issue.
The Chief Minister's announcement here on Saturday to waive the State-government-imposed tax on cooking gas, he said, was not enough.
“She [Ms. Banerjee] has protested only for the benefit of the media. Why did she not ask for a withdrawal of the latest decision to increase fuel prices? Why has she not called for a rollback,” Mr. Bose told journalists.
If the State government was serious, the Chief Minister should have written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding that the increase in fuel prices be withdrawn, said Mr. Bose.
The government should have registered their protest with the Centre, as the Left Front government had done in the past, he said.
On being asked about the State's reduction of cess, Mr. Bose said the Left Front government too had cut back on State taxes in the wake of a fuel-price hike.
The former Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, and the former Health Minister, Surya Kanta Mishra, were present at a protest march here on Saturday.
The intensive campaign, scheduled from July 4 to July 11, will include sit-in demonstrations at Central government offices. The campaign was scheduled keeping in mind farmers' sowing season.
