Orissa BJP to launch week long agitation against price rise

Bhubaneswar, Jun 4 (UNI) The Orissa unit of the BJP will launch a week long agitation against the hike in prices of petroleum products beginning from today.

The union government today raised the prices of diesel by Rs three, petrol by Rs five per litre and LPG by Rs 50 per cylinder.

Party state unit president Suresh Pujari told newspersons here that this was for the second time the Centre had hiked the prices of petroleum products in the last three months.

Stating that the inflation rate had soared to an unprecedented 8.1 per cent, the hike in the prices of petroleum products would further push up the prices of essential commodities.

The BJP would take the issue to the people in the grassroot level as the hike in the price would hurt the middle and lower class people the most, Mr Pujari said.

He criticised the Union Petroleum Minister's statement that if the government had to makeup for the shortfall only through price hikes, petrol would have to be raised by Rs 21.43 per litre, diesel by Rs 31.58 per litre and LPG by Rs 353 per cylinder.

Mr Pujari said the party had already started its preparations to face the coming Assembly and Parliamentary elections.

He said out of the 2,6241 booth committee, 22,405 committee had been formed and the rest would be established in next three months.The party at the national level had already decided this time to issue supplementary election manifestos.

Mr Pujari said the delimitation of constituencies had affected 13 out of the 21 Lok Sabha and 141 of the 147 Assembly constituencies.

The BJP president said a study made by the party on the delimitation issue would soon be discussed with its alliance partner Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the state as to how to share the seats in the coming elections.

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