Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann strongly criticised Centre over the recent rise in petrol and diesel prices and accused BJP-led government of using global conflicts as an excuse to hide its failures and talking about the same Mann made the remarks while responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent appeal asking citizens to reduce fuel consumption and cut down on non-essential spending amid ongoing global crisis linked to war in West Asia.
Addressing the issue Chief Minister Mann said Central government would continue increasing petrol and diesel prices “under the pretext of war” and claimed that before elections government had assured people that prices would not rise but after elections the narrative had changed towards asking citizens to make sacrifices for the country.
Mann alleged that the government was gradually asking people to stop normal daily activities and referring to Prime Minister’s appeal he said citizens were being told not to drive cars, office workers were being encouraged to avoid going to offices through work-from-home practices and people were even being advised to avoid buying gold or holding expensive functions and talking further about the same Mann remarked that the government should simply “put a lock on the country” if such restrictions continued.
Calling the situation a “total failure” of Centre Mann further alleged that BJP government would try to hide all its shortcomings behind ongoing war situation and also criticised Prime Minister for not holding a press conference during his years in office and even claimed that agencies like ED and CBI had become “wings of BJP.”
The remarks came after Prime Minister Modi while addressing a public gathering in Secunderabad appealed to people to help country tackle global economic crisis caused by international conflicts and supply chain disruptions and the Prime Minister said that countries around the world were facing rising prices of fuel, gas and fertilisers because of ongoing war situation and global instability.
PM Modi urged citizens to save fuel by using public transport, metro services, car-pooling and electric vehicles wherever possible and he also encouraged revival of Covid-era systems such as work from home, online meetings and video conferences in order to reduce fuel consumption and save foreign exchange reserves.
The Prime Minister further appealed to people to avoid unnecessary foreign travel, overseas weddings and non-essential gold purchases for one year and also encouraged citizens to buy locally manufactured products and reduce edible oil consumption and at the same time farmers were advised to reduce use of chemical fertilisers and adopt natural farming and solar-powered irrigation pumps.