After FM announces excise duty cuts on fuel, Congress accuses Centre of ‘fooling’ people

The Centre’s decision to cut down excise duty on fuel and gas to tackle inflation has welcomed backlash from the opposition parties.

Soon after the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced slashing the decision, the government’s Ministers led the states to think about reducing state taxes too.

Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri also spoke on “refusal by some states to reduce prices” while thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Meanwhile, members of the Congress party asserted that the reduction is minimal and has accused the government of ‘fooling’ the public. Referring to data from 60 days ago and the 2014 rates, a senior leader of Congress said, “Nation doesn’t need jugglery of figures to dupe the people”.

Post the Finance Minister’s announcement, the price of petrol will reduce by Rs 9.5 and the price of diesel will reduce by Rs 7 due to cuts in central excise duty. As pointed out by Hardeep Singh Puri on Twitter, the fuel prices in many states will remain about Rs 10-15 more than the BJP ruled states despite slashing central excise duty by Rs 8 per litre on petrol and Rs 6 per litre on diesel.

“It is time for these states to wake up & reduce VAT to provide relief to their consumers,” he said.

Congress General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala slammed the government for announcing such “jumlas” and then demanded that the central excise duty must be restored to the 2014 levels at Rs 9.48 per litre on petrol and Rs 3.56 per litre on diesel.

Notably, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi also criticised the Centre by stating that the government was “forced to bow to the demand of the people”.

“Here we go, the arrogance of those in power will never withstand the anger of the people. Forced to bow to the demand of the people. Cut in central excise duty and a subsidy on gas cylinder for Ujwala labhartis”, she posted on Twitter.