NEW DELHI: There was a mixed response to the nationwide called by the opposition yesterday to protest hike in petrol prices. Many people in the metros and other cities chose to stay home.
There were reports of several buses in Mumbai being stoned and being set on fire, trains were stopped in UP's Allahabad, and places in Odisha and Jharkhand. However in Delhi, opposition workers blocked an arterial road causing much inconvenience to office-goers at a time when the temperature is soaring uncomfortably high.
“We will lodge a strong democratic protest over the petrol price hike,” Prakash Javdekar, spokesman of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said.
“People are angry and they want to protest and this is the only legitimate way.”
The strike called by the BJP and other opposition parties is not a threat to the Congress party-led government, but poses a fresh challenge as Singh struggles with declining economic growth and policy paralysis in Parliament.
“The price rise is killing us and the government is sleeping but today will wake them up,” said Ravikant Sahai, a grocery shop owner in New Delhi, where many roads were quiet yesterday morning.
Last week, State-run oil firms announced the sharpest jump in petrol prices in nearly a decade to offset growing losses caused by subsidized rates, rises in the international oil price and a plunging rupee.
Once taxes are included, the price increase of Rs. 6.28 per liter will result in a Rs. 7.5 hike for consumers in cities such as Delhi.
FROM: AGENCIES