95% of people don't need petrol: UP Minister defends fuel price hike

Lucknow: KANPUR UP minister for sports and youth welfare, Upendra Tiwari, dismissed criticism over the rising fuel prices, claiming that 95% people did not need diesel and petrol.

“Today, there are just a handful of people who travel in four-wheel vehicles and use petrol. At present, 95% people don’t need petrol,” Tiwari told media persons at Vikas Bhavan in Orai (Jalaun). He was in the district to hold a review meeting with officials.

He also argued that fuel prices had not really risen in real terms when the per capita income now was compared with that in 2014, referring to the year when a BJP-led government first came to power at the Centre.

The minister’s remarks came when petrol prices had crossed ₹100 per litre in most parts of the country, and diesel hovered close to that mark.

He claimed that the opposition didn’t have any real issue to attack the government.

“You see the data before 2014. What is the per capita income after the formation of the Modi and the Yogi governments?” he said, referring to the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh. “Today, the per capita income is double,” he claimed.

He also referred to free schooling and the coronavirus vaccination offered by the government.