BSP chief Mayawati Tuesday said Congress and the ruling BJP were equally responsible for rising fuel prices. (File)
Amid uncertainty looming large over the inclusion of Congress in SP-BSP-RLD alliance likely in Uttar Pradesh ahead of Lok Sabha polls, BSP chief Mayawati Tuesday said Congress and the ruling BJP were equally responsible for rising fuel prices. Congress and other Opposition parties observed Bharat Bandh Monday against the rising fuel prices. She also condemned violence during the Bharat Bandh.
Mayawati said the BJP was following the same “wrong economic policy” which the Congress-led UPA II government executed, became “unpopular” and lost power in 2014. In a statement, Mayawati said that the BSP finds BJP and Congress equally responsible for the Bharat Bandh against rise in fuel prices. The BSP supremo said that the NDA government had lifted control on diesel pricing on October 18, 2014, just like the UPA-II government did with petrol in June 2010.
“After forming the government with absolute majority, the NDA government not only continued the UPA’s policy on petrol, but lifted control on diesel too. That led to inflation,” Mayawati said in the statement. The BSP chief added that if the government has the will, it can take prices of both petrol and diesel back in its own control.
Mayawati said that as it nears five years in power, the BJP government appears surrounded with similar allegations of wrong economic policies, “anti-people” decisions and corruption, which the Congress-led UPA-II government faced in its last year. While condemning violence in some states during the Bharat Bandh, the BSP chief also slammed the action that the police took against protesters in BJP-ruled states.
The BSP chief said that the Congress and the BJP traversed similar paths, imposing decisions in the country in the name of “big ticket reform” to help the capitalists.