By IANS,
Raipur : Leaders of the Chhattisgarh unit of the Congress, who are gearing up to face the state’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the assembly polls in November, have described the central government’s fuel price hikes as shocking. They fear a voter backlash.
With the Congress leading the ruling coalition at the centre, the party leaders here refused to go on record to oppose the decision to hike petrol and diesel by Rs.5 and Rs.3 per litre besides a hike of Rs.50 per cooking gas cylinder.
But off the record, they called it an extremely bad move that would have an adverse fallout on the party in all states going to the poll this year.
It was “really disturbing that the central government was negating all efforts by taking unpopular decisions such as hiking fuel prices, while the Congress was getting ready for a comeback in key BJP-ruled states Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh this November”, a top leader in the party’s state unit told IANS.
“I will call it a mad decision, though it was mandated due to rising oil prices in the international market. But people will not give a thought to reasons and circumstances,” he said.
He added: “After all, the fuel price hike decision will directly hit the common people and then they will hit us (back) in elections.”
The state-unit of the ruling BJP has decided to cash in on the peoples’ anger with fuel price hike decision with an announcement Thursday to hit the streets in all 146 blocks in a phased manner to keep the issue boiling till the assembly polls.
Chief Minister Raman Singh, who is touring the state since May 23, will now highlight the Manmohan Singh government’s alleged economic failures in his speeches.