Much before the honeymoon ended with the public, the Manmohan Singh government delivered a shock in the form of the fuel price hike -- an act of confident UPA -- to compensate the losses of 2010 Union budget.
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Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Pranab Mukherjee heard an angry Opposition's slogans with rapt attention in Lok Sabha. Dr Manmohan Singh was missing from the House.
Creating a major embarrassment to the Manmohan Singh government, its two major allies -- the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Trinamool Congress -- joined the Opposition in their demand for a rollback of the price hike. The Opposition's contention -- It will hit the Aam Admi (common man).
Even as the government refused to yield, some ruling Congress MPs could be seen approaching the Congress president to advise the government to rollback the diesel price at least to help farmers hit by poor monsoon.
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Most critical was DMK's T R Baalu, blasting the government for not consulting the allies on such a major decision nor routing it through the Cabinet. It is not a Congress government that its core group decides such matters and get them implemented, he warned, threatening serious consequences if such unilateral action is repeated.
"This government is not a unitary (Congress) government but is supported by DMK and Trinamool Congress. It (hike in prices) is not at all good. It should have been discussed with party leaders as also in the Cabinet," Baalu said, stating that he 'strongly condemns' the decision.
"It should not recur. I am saying this as a close friend of Congress," he said.
The Lok Sabha remained paralysed as the House was adjourned twice for 20 and 15 minutes and finally for the day, without transacting any business except for tabling of the economic survey and obituary remarks by the Speaker.
The Rajya Sabha, however, could carry on after the entire Opposition walked out in protest.
The government, however, stood firm, ruling out any immediate rollback but promising to reduce the prices as and when the international crude prices drop. It went on to assert that the increase was minimal keeping in mind 'interests of Aam Admi.'
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, who responded in Lok Sabha to over an hour's attack from all sides, justified the hike. He said: "In view of the continuous rise in global crude prices, a marginal increase had become unavoidable."
He wanted the state governments to reduce sales tax to minimise burden on the people.
Interests of the Aam Admi were uppermost in the government's mind, he said, pointing out that diesel and petrol prices were increased by 'only' Rs 2 and Rs 4/litre respectively as against the proposal to hike them by Rs 4.11 and Rs 6.90 respectively. He argued that interests of poor and middle class prevailed in not increasing the LPG price at all.
Trinamool member Sudip Bandopadhyay was more circumspect, saying his party was 'not happy' with the hike that should be revoked. "We understand that international crude prices have gone up. But this will affect common people," he said, asking Deora to reconsider the decision.
He sought an assurance at least to reduce the prices when the global prices fall.
He also played up the West Bengal politics to anger the Left, pointing out that the sales tax on petroleum products was the highest in the state. Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Basudeb Acharia, however, countered him, pointing out that the state government had slashed sales tax when the Centre had increased the prices last year.
BJP deputy leader Sushma Swaraj, Acharia, Dasgupta (CPI), Arjun Charan Sethi (BJD) and many other Opposition leaders asserted that the government should not have resorted to this unparliamentary act of announcing the decision just hours before Parliament met. They claimed it was contempt of House and betrayal of the people, as the hike will have cascading effect on prices of all commodities at a time when they expected the government to bring down the prices.
