Strike to last till 6 pm; government firm on no rollback of fuel price hike.
Opposition parties prepared for an all-India strike tomorrow on the issue of high fuel and food prices, with the working head of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, L K Advani, claiming after a meeting of its leaders that “this may be the first time in the history of India’s politics that almost all political parties will participate in the Bharat Bandh”.
Governments run by the ruling party prepared to ensure the bandh did not prevent anyone who wanted to work from reaching their offices. In Maharashtra, the Congress-led state government promised to make arrangements for overnight stay of workers in their offices on Sunday night, including offering to arrange food and bedding.
The Union government also refused to countenance any reversal of the recent increase in fuel prices. “No question of roll back,” Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters on the sidelines of an Assocham function in Kolkata, when asked if the government could review its June 25 decision.
However, the Opposition met with only partial success in persuading parties not in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and known to be against the fuel price rises, to join the Bharat bandh. While the Trinamool Congress decided to take part in the 6 am to 6 pm bandh, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janashakti Party were ambivalent. The Samajwadi Party has reportedly decided to join the bandh, while being part of the UPA. The Bahujan Samaj Party has said it would call its own bandh separately.
The Left parties, too, called for a strike tomorrow, making it the biggest combined public strike in recent times.
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‘Callous timing’
Addressing a press conference, Advani said, on behalf of the NDA that the opposition coalition was calling the strike as it was “outraged by the appalling insensitivity of the Central Government in imposing a massive burden on the people in the form of higher taxes on petroleum products and the proposed dismantling of Administered Price Mechanism, first for petrol and subsequently for diesel”.
Advani said the increase in the price could not have come at a worse time. “Food inflation is approximately 18 per cent, a whopping rate by international standards. The Government’s assurances of controlling prices are increasingly sounding like a cruel joke. Knowing full well the cascading effect of fuel price hikes on all commodities, the Government, which claims it has the best economists of the country running the system, showed utter contempt for the concerns of the aam admi, in whose name it sought votes just one year ago.”
The NDA charged that decontrolling prices at this stage would leave ordinary people at the mercy of international oil refiners.”When global crude prices are soft, it defies logic why the Government of India is bent on burdening people repeatedly by hiking retail prices,” it said.
Charging the government with profiteering, the NDA said petrol, which sells at Rs 53/litre at pumps, has a basic price of Rs 16.50. The rest consists of various taxes. Oil export production and sales are subject to ad valorem duties of customs, excise and local state taxes. “Every increase in oil prices increases the revenue burden.The consumer pays both for oil increase and also the increase in taxes, which amounts to over half of the total cost.Clearly, the main purpose of imposing higher prices is to increase the profits of oil companies, so that they can cough up higher and higher dividends to the Government,” the NDA said.
The coalition said in 2008-9, public sector oil companies contributed Rs 90,000 crore by way of dividends. With the latest raise, the dividend is estimated to climb to Rs 120,000 crore. Yet, the Government argues that high international prices will result in the loss of Rs 53,000 crore to its revenues. “Assuming for a moment that the Government is not lying (although how it has reached the figure of Rs 53,000 crore is quite baffling), it still stands to make a huge profit by the increased fuel prices,” said the NDA.