Oil price may fuel Left’s Bengal campaign

After today’s meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the imminent petroleum price hike, the Left leaders have decided to raise t...

After today’s meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the imminent petroleum price hike, the Left leaders have decided to raise the volume of criticism against the UPA government a little more.

It is expected that voices at the CPI(M) Central Committee meeting in Kolkata on June 4 and 5 and the CPI national executive meeting in the Capital from tomorrow will be a lot more strident.

In fact, the CPI(M) may exploit the proposed petrol price hike for the coming Kolkata municipal elections less than three weeks away. For the party, this election is important as it would reveal how far its recent development activities in urban areas had endeared the party to city electorates.

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Already, the party has notched a record win in as many as 49 municipalities in the recently concluded civic polls and is using the division in the anti-Left vote to its advantage. Petrol is a key urban issue, especially in Kolkata where the electorate is extremely sensitive to minimal changes in public transport fares.

CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said after returning from the meeting with the Prime Minister that the government provided its reasons for having to increase the prices. Even senior politburo member Sitaram Yechury explained that the government did have compulsions with the international prices skyrocketing. ‘‘It was a phenomenal price hike globally,’’ he said.

But the Left leaders insisted that the government could still look at the various suggestions provided by the Left long ago. These included withdrawal of the road cess and the excise levy. Asked if the UPA was not ignoring their wishes yet again, the Left leaders, including CPI’s Bardhan and Raja, said that if the prices of petroleum products had not gone up, it was because the Left had applied pressure on the government.