Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday hit out at the Centre saying the decision to reduce excise duty on petrol and diesel was taken "out of fear" of the upcoming Assembly elections.
"This is a decision out of fear, not from the heart. The vasooli government will get an answer for its loot in the coming elections," Gandhi tweeted in Hindi.
The central government on Wednesday reduced the excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 5 and by Rs 10 respectively which is effective starting today. Meanwhile, some state governments also reduced VAT on the two petroleum products.
This comes after the Finance Ministry urged the states "to commensurately reduce" VAT on petrol and diesel to give relief to consumers.
Bharatiya Janata Party-led Assam government announced a reduction of Value Added Tax (VAT) on petrol and diesel by Rs 7. Gujarat, Manipur, Tripura, Karnataka and Goa governments also announced a reduction on VAT on the two petroleum products by the same margin.
Yogi Adityanth-led government in Uttar Pradesh and Manohar Lal Khattar-led government in Haryana reduced VAT on petrol and diesel by Rs 12.
Meanwhile, the Uttarakhand government reduced VAT on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre.
The two petroleum products had been seeing an upward trend recently.
The Finance Ministry had said that crude oil prices have witnessed a global upsurge in recent months and "consequently, domestic prices of petrol and diesel had increased in recent weeks exerting inflationary pressure".
"The world has also seen shortages and increased prices of all forms of energy. The Central government has made efforts to ensure that there is no energy shortage in the country and that commodities such as petrol and diesel are available adequately to meet our requirements," the ministry had said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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