Press Statement issued by Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy,
National Spokesperson, BJP

While the country is reeling with an unprecedented price rise here is a Prime Minister who has thrown his hands up promising to do nothing and alternately declaring the prices of fuel will have to be increased. Amazingly the Prime Minister is desperate to seek a consensus in a folly which would additionally burden the common man and is in absolute contradiction to his claims that prices would be reined in few months.

The Prime Minister who has been hiding behind the growth rate for last four years has completely ruined the economy. The hollowness of his claims has been completely exposed and the economy is in deep crises. The Prime Minister’s recent remark that the hike in the prices of petrol and diesel is inevitable then the exit of the UPA Government and the Prime Minister is also ‘inevitable’. The failure of the government is cast in stone and the statement of the Prime Minister symbolises a Captain fleeing his sinking ship. His shallow claims of controlling prices are a hoax and the “Aam Admi” is its first casualty. The brazen postponement of the financial burden to future government highlights the mismanaged ‘prudent fiscal’ policies sermonised by the economist Prime Minister and practiced by the UPA government.

While the Finance Minister refuses to budge on his stand to revise the duty structure on Petrol & Diesel, he is playing truant to his own decision as a Finance Minister of United Front Govt. which had strategiesed to do away the oil pool account and the practice of issuing subsidy bonds. The NDA govt. on 1st April, 2002 had abolished the oil pool account and had implemented the policy that any loss or subsidy would be reflected in budget and beyond that any hike in prices would be moderated by appropriate duty cuts. The Ad-valorem duty structure on petrol and diesel has given windfall revenue gains to the government which the Finance Minister refuses to rationalize and pass the benefit to the consumers.

The BJP opposes any proposal to raise the prices of Petrol, Diesel and LPG and demands that the government should reduce duties and taxes with immediate effect. The failure of the government to reflect in the Budget subsidy amount crossing over four lac crores is a matter of deep concern for the nation.

(Shyam Jaju)
Headquarter Incharge