From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Congress continues its attack on the Prime Minister for the second day on Thursday for playing a blame game with states instead of addressing the problem of high fuel prices in the country.
“A single look at the spoils of BJP loot will show where the real blame lies,” it said in a series of tweets flying since Wednesday on PM Modi asking the states to cut VAT (value-added tax) on petrol and diesel.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said PM Modi’s federalism is not cooperative. It’s coercive.” Instead of any cooperation with the states, the Centre only dishes out directives, the Congress noted. It said when the states expressed concern over the coal shortage hitting power supply in many states, the Congress said the PM’s response was to become “self-dependent,” and suggested that the states should better go for coal imports for the next three years. Does it solve the shortage problem faced now, it asked.
The Congress said: “PM Modi has hit new milestones this time, a new low in his blame game and a new definition to his understanding of federalism.” Rahul Gandhi tweeted: “High fuel prices, blame states; coal shortage, blame states, Oxygen shortage, blame states….68% of all fuel taxes are taken by the Centre. Yet, the PM abdicates responsibility.”
In yet another tweet, the Congress said the people have now understood the chronology of the BJP loot as the PM forgets while advising the states to reduce VAT that the ruling BJP is involved in the loot through the central excise duty.
It said when Modi was in the opposition in 2012, he blamed costly petrol as the proof of incompetence in governance, and now in power at the Centre, he talks of “injustice” by some states not reducing the tax on petrol. “Modi ji is changing like weather,” it remarked.
“CM Modi then blamed Centre for fuel prices, PM Modi blames states. One thing is clear, it is never his own doing,” another tweet said, noting that he has established that the responsibility changes with becoming the prime minister from the Gujarat chief minister.
The Congress said the Prime Minister is forgetting that hike in the prices of petrol and diesel is due to the central excise duty as the government’s own figures show.
