The Hindu : Khurana does an about-turn on fare hike

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 13, 2002

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Khurana does an about-turn on fare hike

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI MAY 11. Strange are the ways of the former Chief Minister, Madan Lal Khurana. Till a few weeks ago, he was virtually fighting for the transporters, but now he has done an about turn. He has criticised the bus fare hike by the Delhi Government, terming it "anti-people''. He has even launched an agitation in this regard signalling his arrival at the helm of affairs in Delhi BJP.

Interestingly, while Mr. Khurana has criticised the 18 per cent hike in bus, autorickshaw and taxi fares, he has remained silent on the 38 per cent hike in CNG price effected by Centre. Mr. Khurana did not utter a word when the Union Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, took away some tax concessions and failed to live up to the BJP manifesto of increasing the income tax exemption limit to Rs. 1 lakh, a promise made three years ago.

The same Mr. Khurana did not hit the streets when people were burdened with a Rs. 20 LPG hike and farmers were asked to pay more for fertilisers.

In fact, what is most shocking is that rarely did Mr.Khurana attend the programmes and agitations launched by the BJP during recent months and remained absent from party meetings.

Instead, he worked independently and at times even charged the party with doing nothing on major issues. Suddenly, the "prabhari Khurana'' has awakened to the plight of Delhiites and has promised to get them maximum benefits.

But what is most interesting is that while Mr. Khurana and other party leaders have sought to blame the Delhi Government for the "nominal fare hike'', he has not said a single word on around Rs. 4 hike effected in the price of CNG recently.

Also, there has been no effort on the part of Mr. Khurana or his party to impress upon Mr. Sinha to withdraw the excise duty hike imposed on green fuel in the Union Budget which also increased the per kg price by 90 paise.

This coupled with the massive input cost of buying and maintaining a new CNG bus, the 18 per cent hike in fares is all but reasonable.

In fact, what Mr. Khurana has sought to conveniently overlook is that even after the 38 per cent hike in the price of CNG, not a word was uttered by the BJP or its leaders. No representations were made by the Delhi BJP or its MPs to the Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Ram Naik, to impress upon the Indraprastha Gas Limited to reduce the price hike to reasonable limits.

Even Mr. Khurana did not find it convenient to raise the issue of CNG hike in Parliament and instead was busy protecting the Narendra Modi Government inside the House.

Unfortunately, issues affecting the people of Delhi took precedence over the issues affecting the party. Interestingly, Mr. Naik also criticised the hike and said there was real need for it.

But he mentioned nothing about the CNG price increase and why till date he had not replied to the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit's letter asking for a roll back in CNG prices.

The Supreme Court has already ordered a probe into the price increase issue and the findings of the Bhure Lal Committee on this could prove to be embarrassing for the Central Government, IGL and of course the BJP.

Further more, Mr. Khurana has said that the price hike has been affected to benefit the transporters. But these are the same transporters whom Mr. Khurana took around during the CNG crisis days and even addressed media briefings with them.

He had termed their plight as "sad'' and had sought justice for them. But the same transporters have turned villains within no time and Mr. Khurana is accusing them of siding with the Delhi Government.

Is Mr. Khurana going to serve the cause of the transporters by getting the price hike withdrawn. If yes, then he should first impress upon IGL to revert back to status quo as far as CNG price is concerned.

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