By IANS,
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday gave a call for a nationwide shutdown July 5 to protest against the hike in prices of petroleum products and “ineptitude” of the government to address the issue of inflation.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari appealed to “all well-meaning individuals and organisations” and “people opposing the unhealthy and wrong economic policies of the Congress government” to support the shutdown to express concern over price rise.
In a statement, the party said price rise under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime had been continuing unabated and the recent hike in petroleum prices had further burdened the life of the common man.
“BJP believes that it is colossal economic mismanagement and callousness of the UPA government that the common people are being made to suffer unprecedented onslaught of rising prices,” it said.
This was despite repeated assurances by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi that the price rise will be checked, it added.
The party said the government had paid only lip-service to the common man and was playing into the hands of hoarders and racketeers.
“It is shocking that instead of bringing down the prices, the petroleum prices hike shall fuel the price rise further… This is a major betrayal of trust of the common people by the UPA government, which had been elected to office on the plank of addressing the concerns of the ‘aam aadmi'(common man),” it said.
The central government Friday ended government curbs on petroleum pricing and hiked the prices of diesel, kerosene and cooking gas. The price of diesel went up by Rs.2 a litre, kerosene by Rs.3 a litre, cooking gas by Rs.35 per cylinder and petrol by Rs.3.50 a litre.