Imphal, Jun 06: Protesting hike the in petrol and diesel prices, members of Bharatiya janata Party (BJP), Manipur Pradesh staged a dharna today near its office entrance gate located in Nityaipat Chuthek.

as a consequence to increase in crude oil prices in the global market, the Union Cabinet had effected 9.2 percent price hike in petrol and 6.6 percent in diesel from June 5 midnight.

Speaking on the sideline of the agitation, State unit president of the BJP Dr H Borbabu recounted increase of petroleum product prices five times during the UPA coalition rule at the Centre from June 2004 till June this year bringing the total rise in petrol price to 26 percent and diesel to 28 percent.

He also accused the ruling front of putting peasant/farmer communities under tremendous stress by increasing petrol/diesel prices and contributing to inflation rate of the country.

Reminding that BJP had been raising strong objections against the hike in fuel prices in the past and would continue to protest relentlessly, Dr Borbabu asserted that more protest demonstrations would be staged till the hiked fuel price is revised/reduced.

Meanwhile, Communist Party of India (Marxist), manipur State Committee expressing strong resentment at the fuel price hike alleged that the UPA Government's inefficiency has resulted in shifting the burden to the common people.

An ally of the Congress-led Government at the Centre, the State unit CPI(M) in a statement issued by its secretary Dr Y Mahendra pointed out that party's central leader had approved fuel price hike when the crude oil price in the international market had shot up to 60 dollars a barrel in September 2005.Referring to Govt's helplessness in the face of global oil price dictating domestic fuel market, the Left party opined that such problems could be addressed only through rectification in the tax collection and commodity pricing mechanism to narrow down disparity on revenue collection and 'under recovery.' Mentioning that an amount of Rs 99,800 crore had been amassed by the UPA Government as taxes from the oil sector in the 2005-06 fiscal period, the statement said such a revenue is enough to tide over any 'under recovery' cited by the UPA for levying enhanced fuel tax.

Moreover, another sum of Rs 48,600 crores culled from the States is more than enough to tide over changes in crude oil prices around the world rather than resorting to knee-jerk reaction which could ultimately have serious impact on the country's populace majority of whom are not economically sound, suggested the State unit CPI(M).

It also ridiculed UPA assumption that the public could be taken for a ride under the pretext of exempting kerosine and LPG from the price hike, as increasing petrol price by Rs 4 and diesel by Rs 2 had more than compensated for the stagnancy in LPG and kerosine prices.

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