New Delhi:
The Finance Minister spent 45 minutes with his party MPs on Wednesday morning to explain his controversial decision to increase the prices of petrol and diesel.
The hike has led to much criticism from the Opposition, which walked out of Parliament during the Finance Minister's Budget speech last week. On Wednesday, the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha were adjourned till noon after angry discussions over the hike.
More worrying for the government, its own allies like the DMK and Mamata Banerjee have expressed their unhappiness with the decision. While both partners clarified on Tuesday that they will not quit the ruling UPA alliance over the issue. But on Wednesday, DMK chief M Karunanidhi reasserted "We will continue to press for a rollback of diesel price hike through discussions. The PM and FM explained to me the danger of the 3.8 lakh crore short fall in the union budget."
Both the Prime Minister and Mukherjee have ruled out the possibility of any sort of rollback of the new fuel prices, though government sources admit that some allies have been pushing for diesel to be made cheaper by one rupee.
In his class on Wednesday morning, Pranab Mukherjee pointed out the number of times fuel prices were hiked during the opposition NDA regime. While he went into great detail about why it was critical to raise fuel prices right now, he did not make any attempt to discuss rising food prices.