Maha Congress to ‘courier’ empty gas cylinder to PM

Mumbai, Jan 15 (IANS) The Maharashtra Pradesh Mahila Congress (MPMC) will stage protests all over the state on Sunday against the spiralling prices of cooking gas under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY)’ and courier an empty gas cylinder to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a top leader said here on Saturday.

MPMC President Sandhya Sawalakhe said that the PM, who had promised ‘Achhe Din’, has made life difficult for the common man with ‘runaway inflation’ and repeated increase in the prices of petrol-diesel-gas, which in turn fuels price hikes across all sectors of the economy.

“With the rising prices of petrol-diesel-cooking gas, people’s domestic budget has been severely messed up. The government has also reduced the subsidy on cooking gas under the PMUY. As a result, thousands of ordinary women have been forced to revert to cooking on kerosene stoves again,” said Sawalakhe.

As a token of its unique form of dissent, the MPMC will ‘courier’ an empty LPG cylinder to the PM, women Congress activists will protest at all the 36 district collectorates on Sunday and dump around 50 empty gas cylinders at each collectorate on Monday with a request to forward them to the PM, she said.

Sawalakhe added that the LPG cylinder price has now crossed Rs 900 in different parts of the country, making “life totally miserable” for the home-makers and many have reverted to the cheaper kerosene cooking stoves, but the central government remains indifferent to their plight.

“The PM had made a grand show and announced subsidised LPG gas cylinders for poor women under the PMUY, but the same cooking gas has now become unaffordable and beyond the reach of the common masses for whom it was intended,” she pointed out.

This will be part of the ongoing series of agitations organised by the state Congress and MPMC for the past one year against inflation and zooming hike in prices of all essential commodities that have hit the ordinary folks hard in the past few years of the NDA government at the Centre, said the MPMC leader.

–IANS

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