Opposition protests fuel price hike, stages walkout from Lok Sabha

Opposition parties on Wednesday staged a walkout in the Lok Sabha, protesting against the government's proposal to impose cess by Re 1 per litre each on petrol and diesel, and 'unsatisfactory' reply from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on the Budget discussion.

Congress members demanded a rollback of the cess on fuel products and created ruckus during Sitharaman's reply in the House.

Ahead of the end of her speech, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that they were not satisfied with the reply of the Minister and she also failed to give clarifications on the issues raised by them.

Sudip Bandyopadhyay, leader of Trinamool Congress, said that his party was aggrieved with the petrol and diesel price hike and thus they would also walk out.

"In the Budget speech, we are habituated of learning the surplus Budget or the deficit Budget but this has been prescribed as Zero Budget. It has not been explained properly what Zero Budget means," he said.

The senior party leader said that hike in fuel prices is a genuine problem for poor farmers, causing an increase in the prices of every commodity.

"Since the questions have not been replied to properly, as a mark of protest, we too walk out," he said and then the Trinamool members staged a walkout

The Congress, the DMK, the National Conference, Samajwadi Party, NCP and some other regional parties walked out.

( With inputs from ANI )