[1]All Opposition parties in the state are furious with the steep hike in the price of petrol announced on Wednesday and have called for state-wide protests. Telugu Desam chief Chandrababu Naidu said the petrol hike was going to burden the poor people very badly and demanded an immediate roll back. He asked all the district units across the state to launch protest demonstrations from Friday.
CPI general secretary K. Narayana and CPM general secretary B. V. Raghavulu said the hike will have a cascading effect on prices of essential commodities and will affect the poor and middle class alike. TRS chief K. Chandrasekhar Rao asked party units across the Telangana region to burn the effigies of the Union government as a mark of protest on Thursday. He also demanded immediate roll back of the price hike.
For Congress leaders, the increase in price could not have come at a worse time with byelections to 18 Assembly and the Nellore Lok Sabha seats set for June 12. Former minister J.C. Diwakara Reddy said the hike will have an impact on the electorate. “Unless the Centre is going to reduce the burden it will be difficult for the party to convince people to vote for us,” he said. The Congress nominees for the bypolls are optimistic that the Union government will reduce the burden. Publicly they deny that the increase will have an adverse impact on the coming polls.
Magunta Parvatamma, contesting from Ongole, said that in byelections it is local issues that are important to the electorate. Payakaraopet Congress candidate Gantyala Sumana said people believe in the Congress party for implementing excellent welfare programmes which directly benefit them, and the petrol price hike will not affect her prospects in the elections. Parkal Congress nominee S. Samma Rao declined to comment on the impact of the petrol hike on the elections.
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