The BJP government at the Centre is the one responsible for the back breaking price rise.

There’s an old tale here about how a newly married woman takes to staring at the neighbours wall through a window in her marital home. She would then comment to her husband about how dirty their neighbours wall was. It was a repeated exercise until one day she remarked to her husband that the wall was finally clean. Her husband commented and said; that wall was always clean, you just finally cleaned the window you were looking out of.

This simple yet poignant tale is befitting of the BJP in the State. Instead of cleaning their own windows, they’ve taken to saying our walls are dirty. I believe they are in denial about the state of their windows, so have taken to commenting on our walls as a way to stay relevant through their Jan Akrosh Rally. But if the BJP leadership took a moment to assess their own reality, the whole BJP machinery including BY Vijendra, R Ashok and the entire leadership wouldn’t even need to take out this farce of a rally in the State.

The state BJP made Price Rise the issue for their entire Jan Akrosh Campaign but as irony would have it, within days of its start, the BJP government at the Centre raised LPG prices by Rs 50 a cylinder. Alas, the BJP can’t fight against this injustice to the common man. 

Our congress government in Karnataka through its five guarantees is giving approximately Rs 55,000 per family every year. This has increased their economic situation and purchasing power. None of the previous BJP governments, either here or in the Centre, have ever dreamt of empowering people in such a manner.

We’ve also ensured that even in cases of price rises, which were essential, the burden is minimal. For example: even with the increase in milk prices to support our farmers, our prices are still one of the lowest in the country. Even such small increases are outweighed by the benefits of the guarantees being transferred to the people of the state. 

BJP, which used these minimal price increases in Karnataka as the basis of their protest, should have the courage to ask their central BJP leadership about price rises.

Burden of price rise

The price of essentials, fuel and inputs rose in the past 11 years at astronomical rates, which the BJP’s Jan Akrosha rally will never talk about. Irony is, the BJP which claimed to be fighting for Kannadigas against price rise, is now justifying the fuel price hike. They lauded the PM for his trip to America, but didn’t have a single word to say when even the trip didn’t stop President Trump from imposing tariffs on us. But the BJP has nothing to say about this.

The extortion from people by arbitrarily increasing the excise duty on petrol & diesel by BJP government has severely hurt the common people. In fact, your government has earned over 34 lakh crore in last 10 years by taxing the petroleum sector. In the year 2023-24 alone, the balance sheets of the seven big oil companies such as Reliance Industries Ltd, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum, Oil India, GAIL India, ONGC,  reflect that they earned a profit of Rs 2.29 lakh crores. This is at the expense of the common man.

May we remind the union BJP government about fleecing of common man by raising of excise duty. When congress party demitted power at the Centre in May 2014, the excise duty on petrol was Rs 9.20 per litre and on diesel was Rs 3.46 per litre. As on today, excise duty on petrol is Rs 19.90 per litre and on diesel is Rs 15.80 per litre. This is a shocking 457 per cent hike in excise duty on diesel and 216 per cent hike on excise duty in petrol.

The biggest proof of cheating of people by the BJP government lies in the fact that crude oil prices have fallen between 30 per cent to 40 per cent compared to the year 2013-14, but government of India is profiteering from it.

In April-May 2014, when congress government demitted power at the Centre, the crude oil price was USD 108 per barrel. The crude oil prices today are USD 62 per barrel. All through last one decade, the crude oil prices have averaged between USD 70 to USD 80 per barrel. The benefit of the reduced crude oil prices is not being passed on to the consumer by the union BJP government. If it was done, the price of petrol and diesel would by Rs 10 to Rs 15 per litre cheaper. This would reduce the inflation and benefit the common people. The question is why is union BJP government profiteering at the cost of the common man.

That to add insult to the injury, the union BJP government has increased the excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre with effect from 7 April, 2025, If this excise duty had not increased, it would have let to reduction of prices of petrol and diesel by minimum of Rs 2 per litre. By taking away this meagre benefit, the BJP-NDA government has put an additional burden of over Rs 40,000 crore on people, out of which over Rs 4,500 crore is on people of Karnataka alone.

In Karnataka, the annual sale of petrol is 692.43 crore litres and of diesel is 1613.66 crore litres. Even if, the price would have been reduced by Rs 2 per litre, the benefit to consumers would be Rs 4,504 crores. By taking it away, union BJP government has imposed this additional burden of Rs 4,504 crores on people of Karnataka. If we add the additional burden on Kannadigas by way of gas cylinder hike, the total extra burden comes to Rs 4,504 crore+Rs 515.49 crore = 5,019.49 crores.

The central government has gained 36.85 lakh crores from taxation on fuel, but unlike our guarantees where we transfer the benefit to the people, the BJP has held on to this. But what is the BJP even doing with this money? In the past year, the cost of a veg meal has increased by 57 per cent. The price of dal, cooking oil, vegetables and other essential commodities have skyrocketed. Healthcare is 14 per cent more expensive. The much touted uniform regime of GST has increased the tax on every item under the sun. Even insurance has 18 per cent GST on it while even farm implements now have the tax burden on it.

This BJP government is so draconian that they extorted 43,500 crores from poor citizens for non maintenance of balance in their accounts from 2018 to 2024.

Where’s the battle for fair devolution?

The state gives the Centre close to 4.50 lakh crores as its share of taxes, but the Centre through devolution gives us a mere 15,000 crores in return which means for every rupee Karnataka sends, we get a pittance in the form of 13 paisa. All our demands for greater devolution have fallen on deaf ears.

Sadly, none of the BJPs MPs from Karnataka have said a word against this injustice to their state. Where is the Jan Akrosha then? The Jan Akrosha battle needs to be for the betterment of the people and not just political benefit. But the fact is, no matter how many rallies the BJP and JDS take out, the people are with the congress and the sooner they realise that, the better for them.                             

Randeep Singh Surjewala is AICC General Secretary in charge of Karnataka