Congress’s Rahul Gandhi today attacked the Centre over the hike in petro prices, citing data for petrol, diesel and cooking gas. Over the last 7 years, the government has earned more than ₹ 23 lakh crore because of the rise of diesel, petrol and cooking gas, he said, claiming the funds from all this and the Goods and Services tax, are benefiting a handful of crony capitalists.
The increase in GDP, he equated with the rise of “gas, diesel and petrol prices”.
When the UPA left office, the price of LPG was ₹ 410 a cylinder, today it is ₹ 885 — a 116 per cent rise, Mr Gandhi said. The price of petrol has increased by 42 per cent and diesel has increased by over 55 per cent since 2014, he said.
“Today, people are giving the argument that these are dependent on international market. But let me highlight the fact that the international prices for these have fallen since 2014, but it has increased in India,”
Mr Gandhi said, drawing a parallel with 2014 when despite high petro price in the international market, prices were low in India.
Pointing to the condition of the economy, he said India is back at the place where it was in 1990, facing an economic catastrophe.
“At that time, the Congress government had changed the vision for India. But that is not happening now… The economic structure and strategy that ran from 1991 to 2012 is not working anymore. We accept that it stopped working in our time in 2012. But Narendra Modi came with the promise of changing all that. But where is the change?” he added.
