By IANS,
Agartala : The ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) called a 12-hour strike in Tripura Thursday to protest fuel and cooking gas price hikes, a party official here said.
“We have been forced to call for the dawn-to-dusk state-wide shut down against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s decision to raise the price of diesel, petrol and cooking gas,” said Bijon Dhar, CPI-M central committee member Wednesday.
He said: “The central government has ignored the alternative proposals of the left parties to tackle the fuel price related problems. It has instead transferred the burden on to the common man and spared private oil companies.”
“This is not the government of the ‘aam admi’ (common man),” he told newspersons.
The decision to hike the prices of petroleum products was taken at a marathon meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This would result in petrol becoming dearer by Rs.5 per litre, diesel by Rs.3 and cooking gas by Rs.50 per cylinder.