Strikes over fuel price hit three states

Kolkata: Strikes shut down transport, businesses and schools in three communist-run states on Thursday after a rise in fuel prices, but there was as much anger at the shutdowns as over the price hikes.

Communist allies of the ruling coalition kicked off a week of protests against Wednesday's price hikes by calling one-day strikes in the three states they rule - West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura - leaving streets, offices and airports largely deserted.

They say the government should have done more to insulate consumers from high global oil prices, even though it only passed on a fraction of surging crude costs when it raised heavily subsidised prices of petrol and diesel by about 10 per cent. But anger at having to pay more for fuels competed on the streets with frustration at the communists for calling a strike that would deprive people of income and disrupt travel plans.

"I don't support the strike. The politicians call them at the drop of a hat," said Manisha Mukherjee, who had gone to Kolkata's airport to see off a relative only to find the flight had been cancelled. "This is not in the common people's interest."

Rickshaw puller Anwar Ali saw things differently.

"The government does not care for poor people like us," he said. "Today they have raised fuel prices, tomorrow the prices of other essentials will go up and we will continue to suffer."

Flights cancelled

Protesters, some waving red flags, stopped trains and buses in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, and even forced people out of cabs to enforce the dawn-to-dusk strike, witnesses and police said. Rain also helped keep people off the streets. Flights in and out of the state were cancelled, leaving hundreds stranded at the airport. The main opposition party in the state, the Trinamool Congress, will throw its weight behind a 12-hour strike today.

Stoppages also hit Tripura and Kerala, where the container port of Kochi, an important commodities transit point, was shut.

But software companies in Kerala's main cities were largely unaffected, transporting people to work as normal in company buses, but with police escorts.