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Fuel price protests in eastern India start to peter out
Communists protesting over fuel price rises burned tyres and blocked roads in parts of eastern India on Tuesday but elsewhere calls for strikes were largely ignored as protests petered out.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:03 June 11, 2008
Patna: Communists protesting over fuel price rises burned tyres and blocked roads in parts of eastern India on Tuesday but elsewhere calls for strikes were largely ignored as protests petered out.
Calls for a one-day strike in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar evoked little response in the capital Patna where people seemed as angry about the proposed shutdown as about higher fuel prices.
But in small towns and the countryside, communist supporters stopped cars and buses by flinging burning tyres on highways.
A similar shutdown call in the neighbouring state of Jharkhand was rejected by people who said a strike hurt businesses and worsened an already biting rise in fuel prices.
India increased petrol and diesel prices last week by around 10 per cent after the cost of fuel subsidies brought state oil companies close to bankruptcy.
The government's communist allies and the opposition called for strikes and protests in a bid to make political capital out of the unpopular move, but this has largely backfired with many people complaining the strikes only made things worse.
Neither the communists nor the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party gave any concrete plans for further protests. With elections due in less than a year, rising inflation is a problem for the Congress party-led government and the fuel price hike is another headache it could do without.
Yet many middle-class Indians understand the need to raise fuel prices, while Congress hopes job creation and loan waiver schemes will reduce any backlash among the rural poor.
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