Left parties call for week-long nationwide protests against price rise, unemployment from May 25

The Left parties demand withdrawal of all cess/surcharges on petroleum products and roll back price hikes, particularly of cooking gas cylinders.

Left parties have said that they will launch a week-long nationwide protests from May 25 against price rise and unemployment.

Unabated price rise is imposing unprecedented burden on the people. Crores are suffering and are pushed into deeper poverty with growing hunger pangs. Growing levels of unemployment is compounding people’s miseries, a joint press release issued by the Left parties said.

The prices of petroleum products have increased by 70% in a year, vegetables by 20%, cooking oil by 23%, and cereals by 8%. Wheat, the staple diet of crores of Indians, is seeing a price rise of over 14% making it unaffordable. Wheat procurement has declined. The Union government has procured less than half of last year. This year procurement will not cross 20 tonnes as against the target of 44.4 tonnes, the release said.

The continuous hike in prices of petroleum products and cooking gas cylinders and the acute shortage of wheat is propelling this overall inflation. The reported coal shortages are pushing up the cost of electricity.

Under these circumstances, the Left parties demand that the Union government must immediately withdraw all cess/surcharges on all petroleum products and roll back price hikes, particularly of cooking gas cylinders. Wheat supplies through the Public Distribution System (PDS) must be restored. The PDS must be strengthened to check this price rise, the release issued by the Communist Party of India (Marxists), the Communist Party of India, the All-India Forward Bloc, the Revolutionary Socialist Party, and the CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation said.

They have also demanded an employment guarantee scheme for urban areas and increase in allocation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.