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MANGALURU: Congress workers held a protest rally against increase in the prices of petrol, diesel and LPG in Mangaluru on Tuesday. Party workers staged a demonstration by walking from the Clock Tower to the deputy commissioner’s office, carrying firewood on their heads, symbolically opposing the frequent hike fuel prices.

The party workers also used a bullock cart and pulled an autorickshaw to express their anger over the price rise and inflation. At a protest meeting held near the deputy commissioner’s office, former minister B Ramanath Rai said that while the Congress was always with the poor and downtrodden, the BJP in power has been following an anti-people policy.

“Poor are being thrown on to the streets, due to the anti-people policies of the BJP government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah are sadists. They have been enjoying the plight of the poor, who are in distress,” Rai alleged.

“It was the BJP that ruled the nation for the past five years. The BJP said that voting for them will bring prices of petrol and diesel down. Now, people have to vote for the Congress, to reduce the prices of petrol and diesel,” Rai said.

Dakshina Kannada District Congress Committee president and MLC K Harish Kumar said the only achievement worth mentioning about the BJP was an increase in the prices of essential commodities.

"It is a government of corporates and the corrupt, and they want the poor in the nation to become poorer. No government has the right to sell public sector units, but the BJP has entered into that business too,” he said.

Mangaluru MLA U T Khader, referring to the BJP government’s Rs 20 lakh crore Covid-19 package announcement, sought the state government to provide details of the funds released to beneficiaries in Dakshina Kannada.

“They have been playing with people’s sentiments by raking up issues of Pakistan, and thereby trying to strengthen their vote bank. Let the government bring a ray of hope in people by reducing the prices of essential commodities, instead of playing politics of sentiments,” Khader said.