Price-rise under UPA rankled, under Modi it’s fine

The government directive over faster price hike to end cooking gas subsidy has come as a bolt from blue. While the government's move to raise the price of cooking gas by Rs. 4 every month till next March triggered a huge row in parliament's upper house on Thursday, #NationalistGasPriceHike has been trending on social networking site twitter since morning.

A subsidised LPG cylinder now costs ₹477.46 per 14.2-kg cylinder in Delhi. It was priced at ₹419.18 in June last year. The rate of non-subsidised LPG, which consumers pay after exhausting their quota of below-market priced bottles, costs ₹564.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna last year, the government had given free cooking gas connections to over 2.5 crore with an objective to provide 'clean fuel, better life' to all women belonging to BPL and to make the rural households smoke free.

Meanwhile, the government has asked state oil companies to keep raising prices of kerosene by 25 paise every fortnight until the subsidy is eliminated, or until further orders, according to a report in Economic Times. It added that the oil ministry had earlier ordered a similar increase only up to July this year.

Taking the government decision with a pinch of salt, the twitterati has reacted strongly to it. Many have managed to find humour in elimination of cooking gas subsidy.

Several BJP stalwarts—currently cabinet ministers in Modi government, who used to be at the forefront of protests over price hike when UPA was in power, now find themselves at the receiving end of barbs.

Here’s is a selection of twitter reactions: