The Shiv Sena, which is an alliance partner in both the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central and Maharashtra governments, yesterday launched protests against the runway fuel price hike and inflation by carrying empty gas cylinders and organising mock funerals of the BJP.
Thousands of Shiv Sena activists led by ministers, MPs, legislators and local unit leaders led the agitations held at 12 places all over Mumbai and its suburbs.
Scores of Shiv Sainiks including MPs Arvind Sawant and Anil Desai, several sitting and former legislators and municipal corporators, and local leaders were detained across Mumbai.
The Sainiks, many carrying empty gas cylinders, fuel cans, posters and placards, raised deafening slogans attacking the central and state governments headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis respectively.
The protests by thousands of activists shouting “BJP Come to Your Senses, Or Get Out” caught the attention of weekend commuters and tourists.
In Bandra, Yuva Sena president Aditya Thackeray reiterated that demonetisation has completely failed and multiplied the miseries of the common man.
The protests were held at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Borivali, Kandivali, Jogeshwari, Dadar, Kurla, Ghatkopar, Bhandup, Chembur, where the speakers alleged a scam in the current high prices of petrol, diesel and gas, and organised a mock funeral of the BJP government in Borivali.
Desai said party MPs and MLAs had brought to the notice of the prime minister and chief minister the perils of inflation and the sky-rocketing prices of petrol and diesel.
He said people had become disappointed due to inflation and everything had become unaffordable.
The government has forgotten that it had defeated the Congress after committing itself to the poor and the middle class, he said.
Sawant said the BJP-led government was taking decisions arbitrarily, without taking its allies into confidence.
“Today, the government is taking decisions without taking anybody into confidence. Modi should go through the speeches he delivered before becoming the PM, when the fuel prices went up during the Congress rule,” Sawant said.
“Likewise, union ministers Smriti Irani and Rajnath Singh should also be shown their speeches made before the BJP came to power. All of them had hit the streets. Today, the prices of crude oil globally are far less than before, yet the fuel rates here are going up,” he added.
In a veiled attack on Tourism Minister Alphons Kannanthanam, who had defended the fuel price hike, Sawant said, “One of their ministers shamelessly insults the people and rubs salt on their wounds. We want to know if this is the ‘acche din’ promised by them.”
Alphons, who was recently inducted into the council of ministers, had said, “Who buys petrol? Somebody who has a car or bike. Certainly he’s not starving. People who can afford to pay should pay.”
This is the second major agitation spearheaded by the Shiv Sena, which is a constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance at the Centre and in Maharashtra.
Earlier this month, the party had organised protests across the state demanding the implementation of total farm loans waiver package announced in June.
Yesterday’s protests were sharply criticised by Mumbai BJP leaders Ashish Shelar Dhananjay Munde.
Shelar said those who were elected to power on the strength of Modi are today raising slogans against him.
“It is said that when you raise slogans for the death of a living person, he lives a longer life,” he said.
Munde said the Shiv Sena’s protests are “a sham” as the party continued to stick to power.
Similar protests were organised by Shiv Sena units in Kolhapur, Thane and other districts in Maharashtra after a call was given by party president Uddhav Thackeray last week.
Meanwhile, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan yesterday favoured including petroleum products under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime “in people’s interest”, even as he insisted petrol and diesel prices had started falling.
Pradhan told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Gandhinagar that the central government had asked the GST Council to consider implementing the new taxation regime in the petroleum sector.
“We have appealed to the GST Council to implement GST on petroleum products, which would ensure interests of the people. This way, the interests of the state and central government will also be secured,” he said.
Pradhan also stressed on the need for states to have a balanced model, so that taxes can be collected without the people being affected by it.
Attributing the recent hikes in fuel prices to market fluctuations caused by hurricanes Irma and Harvey in the US, he said: “The prices have begun to fall, in fact they had gone down even during the last two days.”
Shiv Sena activists participate in a protest rally against petrol and diesel price hike in Mumbai yesterday.
