Urging the Centre to work on solutions, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to roll back increases in fuel price and pass on the benefit to a middle and salaried class, farmers and poor people. She said these sections of society are battling an unprecedented economic slowdown, widespread unemployment, wage reductions and job losses, high prices, and income erosion.

"I hope you will agree that it is time for your Government to focus on solutions instead of looking for excuses. India deserves better," she said in a letter to Modi here on Sunday.

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She was expressing anguish and deep distress regarding the spiralling fuel and gas prices. She said people’s challenges have been compounded by runaway inflation and an unprecedented rise in the price of almost all household items and essential commodities. "Sadly, in these distressing times, the Government has chosen to profiteer off people’s misery and suffering," the UPA chairperson said.

She said the surging price of diesel has added to the escalating woes of millions of farmers. "What baffles most citizens is that these prices have been increased despite moderate prices of International crude oil. The crude oil price is nearly half of what it was during the UPA Government’s tenure, to put it in context. Therefore, your Government’s act of raising prices (continuously for 12 days till February 20th) is little less than a brazen act of profiteering," Gandhi maintained.

She said the Centre had increased excise duty on diesel by 820 per cent and on petrol by 258 per cent over and collected upwards of ₹21 lakh crore in the last six and a half years. "This unaccounted-for windfall is yet to be passed to the people for whose benefit it was ostensibly collected," she added.

"What is equally distressing is that despite being in power for almost 7-years now, your government continues to blame previous regimes for its own economic mismanagement. To set the record straight, domestic crude oil production has fallen to an 18-year low in the year 2020," she claimed.

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