Fuel price may raise storm in cabinet

Chief minister Prithviraj Chavan can expect a stormy cabinet meeting on Wednesday as Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) ministers plan to push for complete rollback on the hike in diesel, cooking gas and kerosene prices.

What complicates matters for Chavan is that top ministers from the alliance, including deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, home minister RR Patil and public works department minister Chhagan Bhujbal, will be leading the protest.

State NCP chief Madhukar Picchad on Tuesday led a delegation to Chavan and presented a memorandum to express their displeasure over the Congress government’s decision. “We are not politicising the issue. We are only voicing the concerns of the common people, who are badly affected by the hike in cooking gas, kerosene and diesel prices,” he said.

According to the party estimates, an average Mumbaikar’s monthly household expenditure will rise by almost 20% after the fuel price hike. “NCP chief Sharad Pawar has greenlighted the strategy to adopt an aggressive stand against its alliance on the price rise issue,” said a senior NCP functionary, requesting anonymity.
And the NCP is not alone. Even the Trinamool Congress Party lead by Mamata Banerjee, M Karunanidhi’s DMK and the RJD led by Laloo Prasad are against inflation.

“The Congress has no business imparting lessons on collective responsibility in running the coalition government. They should recall how they always put their allies on the backfoot. There was a sustained campaign for the last two years to malign Pawar’s image by blaming him for the hike in food grain prices,” alleged a senior NCP minister, on condition of anonymity.

Chavan, who expects NCP to exploit the situation to its advantage by blaming the Congress, has urged the party political managers to explain the situation to citizens.

“The Centre’s decision cannot be rolled back by the state government. The state government can exercise its authority only to vary the taxes imposed on the petroleum products,” Chavan told his party members.

The chief minister can also not completely drop the taxes on diesel and kerosene prices, which have been increased by Rs 3 and Rs 2 respectively. And in the case of cooking gas, which has increased by Rs 50, there is no tax.

Chavan’s argument is that if taxes are completely dropped it would adversely impact revenue generation, which is the main source of finances for development projects in the state.