Bhubaneswar, Nov 4: Ridiculing the Congress-led UPA government's ‘Aam Aadmi' slogan, Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today said the latest petrol price hike has truly overburdened the common people.
“The Congress-led UPA government, which gave slogan for the welfare of the ‘Aam Aadmi' is truly doing things which are callous and shocking,” Patnaik told reporters while strongly opposing hike of Rs 1.80 per litre of petrol.
Food inflation has already touched an all time high, Patnaik claimed, adding further rise in petrol price would add to the miseries of the poor.
People would never tolerate such anti-poor policy, Patnaik said and stressed that his party had been opposing frequent fuel price hike.
Finance minister Prafulla Ghadai slammed the UPA government which deregulated the oil sector. “Since the government has no control over oil companies, they hike prices of fuel though it is a welfare state.” Ghadai said.
Meanwhile, the youth wing of the ruling BJD staged a demonstration near Raj Bhavan.
“The people of Orissa have already rejected the Congress. Now the party will be wiped out for hiking fuel price,” BJD MLA Bijay Kumar Mohanty said.
Dubbing the UPA-II as “anti-poor”, the state unit of Samajwadi Party, demanded rollback of the petrol price in the interest of the common people who voted the Congress led coalition to power.
“When UPA-II came to power in May 2009, the price of petrol per litre was Rs 40 and now it has reached around Rs 70,” said SP state president Rabi Behera in a statement. Left parties also staged demonstrations in the state capital and other places opposing the petrol price hike.
Almost all the non-Congress parties came to the streets opposing the petrol price hike and demanding immediate steps to roll back the increase.
