BJP, TMC Trade Charges Over Fuel Price Hike

With petrol and diesel prices in the state touching an all time high, politics over the high cost of fuel touched fever peak, with the TMC accusing the BJP-led central government of being “anti-people” in hiking prices and the BJP retaliating by taunting the Trinamool government in the state that it should show its concern for people by cutting state taxes on oil products.
The hike in diesel prices saw bus operators taking as many as 60 per cent of their fleet off the roads, causing hardship for office-goers.
The TMC which is locked in a bitter fight with the BJP not just in the state but also elsewhere, attacked the central government over the rising fuel prices.
TMC state general secretary and spokesperson Kunal Ghosh on Saturday said "the Modi government is showing its anti-people nature by increasing prices of diesel and petrol on a regular basis, after the assembly polls in five states got over."
The party’s student wing had hit the streets earlier this week to protest the rising prices of auto-fuels as well as cooking gas. While its MPs stalled Parliamentary proceedings over the fuel price rise.
BJP on Saturday lashed back, calling upon West Bengal government to roll down the state tax - VAT - on fuel to cushion the common man against the pinch caused by the steep hike.
Party spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya told reporters, "If the state government is really concerned about the common man not feeling the pinch for hike in fuel prices, triggered by rise in crude oil rates in the world, why doesn't it slash the VAT on petroproducts?”
“That would have acted as cushion for the public," Bhattacharya argued. He also claimed while the Centre wants to bring GST in petro- products to bring down fuel prices, "West Bengal is preventing that." TMC’s Ghosh however countered this by claiming “the BJP in West Bengal is trying to divert the issue and misleading people."
West Bengal Bus and Minibus Owners Association General Secretary Pradip Narayan Basu told PTI of the 6,600 contract carriages (buses and minibuses) plying in Kolkata, its northern southern suburbs and Howrah, just over 2200 are plying now.
"The situation is dismal. More than 60 per cent buses have stopped plying. While those still on road are being taken out only when the volume of passengers is high. Otherwise, we cannot recover the cost of running and pay the driver and conductor," he said.
Basu said besides taking up the need to take measures to help bus operators cope with the crisis, transporters would also informally request passengers to “shell out a little more money than the fares decided last in 2018, to save the industry.”