Shiv Sena protests fuel price hike

Mumbai : Around 10,000 people, some of them riding animal-drawn carts, Sunday participated in a march organised by Shiv Sena to protest the hike in diesel price and restriction of subsidised cooking gas cylinders per family per year.

The protest march that started from Shivaji Park in Dadar in central Mumbai was led by Aditya Thackeray, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray’s grandson and the president of the youth wing of the party.

“We will fight this battle against rising prices till the end. We will ensure that the voice of a common man reaches the Congress,” he said.

Several senior leaders including former chief minister Manohar Joshi were also present at the march that culminated at the famous Siddhivinayak Temple, two km away from where it started.

The march saw people riding bullock carts and horse carts to make the point that the rising prices have left common people with no options. An empty cooking gas cylinder was also decorated and garlanded in an effort to ridicule the decision of restricting the supply.

Women participated in the morcha in large numbers and were seen beating steel plates with rolling pins and shouting slogans against price hike.

Addressing the protesters at the culmination, Shiv Sena executive resident Uddhav Thackeray said: “Frequent price hike in essential commodities show that Congress is against the common man. Our prime minister is just a wax statue (mom ka putla) and nothing can be expected of him.”

Speaking about Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde’s “short public memory” remark on coal scam, he said “Shinde has revealed the true identity of Congress by his remarks”.

Uddhav also said that there is no point in beating of plates to make a point. “It is the Congress that needs to be beaten (to pulp),” he said.