The Hindu : National : BJP fears hike in fuel prices

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 10, 2006

National

National

BJP fears hike in fuel prices

Special Correspondent

Leads to all round inflation: spokesperson

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday made a number of charges against the United Progressive Alliance government: it was getting ready to increase the prices of petroleum products once again; it was not interested in stopping the lottery business; and it was planning to cut the quota for small investors in the capital market instead of getting to the bottom of the demat account scandal.

In the 20 months of UPA rule, petroleum product prices had been revised upwards six times leading to a 35 per cent increase, party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said while expressing fears that it was getting ready for another hike. Rubbishing the UPA excuse that the hike was necessitated by the high international price of crude, he pointed out that 65 per cent of the price in India was on account of taxes and there was room to play with that to keep the prices down to a reasonable level for consumers.

He said every increase in the prices of petroleum products leads to all round inflation, especially affecting the prices of essential food items such as foodgrains, vegetables and fruit.

Lottery business

On the issue of lotteries, the party national secretary Vijay Goel, who has been campaigning in favour of banning all lotteries, charged that the UPA government was thinking of forming a committee "to regularise" the lottery business instead of banning what was an evil.

He pointed out that the Vajpayee government had by legislation banned the single-digit lottery but there was need to ban this completely. The revenues earned from this by some States were meagre and ways could be found to raise the money in other ways.

The convenor of the party's investor cell, Kirit Somaiya, has demanded that the Government get to the bottom of the fraudulent demat accounts scandal. Instead the Government was thinking of reducing the quota for small investors, a move that would "crush" the small investor out of the capital market, he said.

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