The UPA ally, Mamata Banerjee, is all guns against the government in relation to the recent petrol price hike. She took her protest to the streets of Kolkata on Saturday to mark the protest.
The West Bengal Chief Minister is marching from her Assembly constituency of Jadavpur to Hazra in south Kolkata. The Union Railway Minister Mukul Roy had also participated in a Trinamool Congress protest in the city on Thursday.
Mamata Banerjee was quick to vocally protest when the hike of Rs 6.28 plus taxes was announced by the government on Wednesday. She stated that the government should not have allowed such an economic situation to come.
She also revealed that she was not threatening to destabilize the UPA government by pulling out of it, but also that her party had the right to protest.
The Trinamool Congress chief also complained that her party was yet again, not consulted before the decision was taken by the government. She termed the government’s move as unjust and unilateral.
On the other hand, Congress MP from West Bengal, Adhir Chowdhary, asked her to follow the Goa model to bring down the prices of petrol in the state. This will reduce the VAT on petrol the way other states like Goa have done, he said.
Another senior ally in the UPA, DMK, has also opposed the petrol price hike and stated that the government should reconsider and reduce it. It has also announced a peaceful protest in front of collector’s offices across Tamil Nadu on May 30.
According to sources, the demand for a rollback has come even from within the Congress, which leads the UPA government at the Centre. They added that some Congress leaders too have said they did not know about the price rise.
