The latest ammunition for Congress president Rahul Gandhi to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the hike in petrol and diesel prices. Taking to Twitter, the Congress chief attacked PM Modi, saying the poor and the middle class “bear the brunt of rising fuel prices”.
Rahul Gandhi tweeted a video, edited and modified to include parts of a speech by PM Modi, followed by a snip from a television programme, showing Bollywood superstar Salman Khan laughing in a sarcastic manner.
He tweeted, “The poor & the middle class bear the brunt of rising fuel prices. In this video, our PM is quite obviously talking about some other country.”
The poor & the middle class bear the brunt of rising fuel prices. In this video, our PM is quite obviously talking about some other country. #PeTrolled pic.twitter.com/J6PHC7UsJZ
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) April 4, 2018
In the speech, PM Modi can be seen addressing a rally wherein he asks people if prices of petrol and diesel have gone down or not. Referring to PM Modi as “The King of Misinformation”, the video mocks him over petrol and diesel prices hitting record high.
This comes a day after petrol prices touched 4-year-high while diesel prices touched an all-time high. The record high has resulted in increased pressure on the government to cut excise tax rates. The government has, however, ruled out any immediate reduction in excise duty to cushion relentless rise in international oil prices.
On Tuesday, state-owned oil firms, which have been since June last year revising auto fuel prices daily, raised petrol prices by 12 paise and diesel rates by 13 paise per litre each in Delhi, as per an Indian Oil price notification.
Government had cut excise duty by Rs 2 per litre in October 2017. At that time, petrol price had reached Rs 70.88 per litre in Delhi and diesel Rs. 59.14. Following the reduction in excise duty, diesel prices had on October 4, 2017 come down to Rs 56.89 per litre and petrol to Rs 68.38 per litre. The October 2017 excise duty cut cost the government Rs 26,000 crore in annual revenue and about Rs 13,000 crore during the remaining part of the current fiscal year.
