LPG price hike has affected me too: DK Shivakumar

BENGALURU: “My wife didn’t give me breakfast this morning. She said all the women who work at our home were going to protest against the LPG price hike. If this is how I, who can afford to buy LPG even if it is Rs 1,000, am affected, imagine the plight of the common man,” said DK Shivakumar KPCC president, amid cheers from the members of the State Mahila Congress on Tuesday.

Participating in a protest against the Union government, he said, “LPG that was being sold for Rs 370 per cylinder during the UPA regime is now costing Rs 900+. On the one hand, fuel prices are increasing and on the other, LPG prices are burdening the common man.”

The massive protest organised by the women’s wing of Karnataka Congress near Sangolli Rayanna Circle in Bengaluru saw hundreds of women workers demanding slashing of LPG prices. Women’s wing chief Pushpa Amarnath and MLAs like Sowmya Reddy and Laxmi Hebbalkar led the protest.

Members of the Mahila Congress held cardboard cutouts of gas cylinders and shouted slogans against the Union government and protested the price hike. The protest comes barely two days ahead of the Karnataka Budget session.

The protest is the first in a series of agitations planned as part of Congress’ short-term and long-term campaign strategies. The first leg of the party’s statewide padayatra will begin on Wednesday. Shivakumar who claimed to have skipped breakfast at home, sat with the protestors and ate idli made on a firewood stove as part of the protest.