Shah slams MVA's 'appeasement politics'; says Patole has agreed to Ulemas' Muslim quota demand
Jalgaon/Buldhana (PTI): Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah on Sunday said the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi could stoop to any level for the sake of appeasement and vote bank politics.
He further said Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole had agreed to the Ulema Council's demand for Muslim reservations.
Addressing rallies in Raver assembly constituency in Jalgaon and Malkapur seat in Buldhana, Shah pointed out to a recent memorandum submitted by the Ulema Council to the opposition Congress seeking 10 per cent reservation in jobs and education for the Muslim community.
"Patole has agreed to end reservations for SCs. STs and OBCs and give it to Muslims as demanded by the Ulema Council," Shah said in Buldhana.
The demand for 10 per cent quota for the Muslim community would eat into the benefits of Dalits, tribals and Other Backward Classes, since there is a 50 per cent cap on quota and any increase will come at the cost of existing ones, he told the gathering.
"Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders' lust for power has blinded them to long-term consequences of their actions on marginalised communities. The BJP is firmly committed to welfare of all communities but is strictly against any form of reservations for Muslims. As long as there is even one BJP MP or MLA, we will oppose religion-based reservation. This is our commitment," he asserted.
"The MVA parties have compromised the country's safety due to their appeasement politics. They are undermining national security for the sake of votes," he added.
Slamming the Congress and NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar, the senior BJP leader said they opposed the construction of the Ram Temple for decades, and only after Narendra Modi became prime minister, the issue was resolved with the construction of a grand temple in Ayodhya.
Shah said the BJP's vision for the state aligns with the ideals of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
The Mahayuti promises a government focused on preserving Maharashtra's culture and prosperity, he added.
Shah also dared Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray to get Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, a Maha Vikas Aghadi ally, to hail Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar and Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.
Under the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA dispensation, which ruled between 2019 and June 2022, Maharashtra lost its competitive edge in industrial growth and the state fell to fourth rank, Shah pointed out.
Slamming the opposition parties for claiming that industries were leaving Maharashtra and new ones were not coming up, the senior BJP leader said the MVA can do no good for the state.
Hailing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Shah said terror attacks under previous Congress-led Union governments faced no response, while the NDA dispensation ordered surgical strikes to hit camps across the border.
Praising the Modi government's move to amend the Waqf Board Act, Shah said, "In Karnataka, villages, temples and agricultural lands were converted into Waqf land. But after the Centre's amendments, such acts will not be possible."
Shah said the Modi government, between 2014 and 2024, allotted Rs 10,15,890 crore to Maharashtra, while this figure was just Rs 1.51 lakh crore under the Manmohan Singh-led UPA dispensation's 10-year rule.
The MVA has been misleading people and has failed to fulfil its promises, he said.
"The MVA's guarantees are nothing but lies, appeasement and involve corruption. They promise hundreds of things, but as (Congress chief) Mallikarjun Kharge rightly said, promises should be ones that can be fulfilled. The guarantees the Congress gave in Karnataka, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh were not fulfilled," he said.
The MVA cannot protect Maharashtra as its constituents are concerned about their own interests rather than that of the state or nation, he claimed.
"The MVA opposed Mumbai's metro rail lines, coastal road, Pune outer link road, Dharavi redevelopment and Vainganga-Nalganga river linking project. Even the (Mumbai-Ahmedabad) bullet train project was delayed due to the MVA's opposition," he said.
Under the leadership of Modi, the country is witnessing significant growth and its economy is set to become the world's third largest by 2027, he said.
The BJP would continue to champion such policies focused at development at the national and state levels, he added.
Further attacking the Congress, Shah said the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru put the recommendations of the Kakasaheb Kalelkar commission, which advocated quota for backward classes, in cold storage, while then PM Indira Gandhi shelved the Mandal commission recommendations.
"It was the BJP under Modi which brought real change for backward communities," Shah asserted.
Shah further said "caste politics was over" and that "the poor, women, farmers and youth are the only four castes of the country" for whose development the BJP was committedly working.
Speaking in Mumbai earlier in the day, Shah had said "our Constitution does not provide reservations based on religion" but the Congress was promising such quotas before coming to power.
Maharashtra polls will be held on November 20, while votes will be counted on November 23.
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Rs 30,000 cr loss a month: Oil companies bleed as fuel prices on hold amid global energy spike
New Delhi (PTI): About Rs 700-1,000 crore loss per day. Rs 30,000 crore every month. India's state oil companies are quietly absorbing a massive financial hit to keep petrol, diesel and LPG prices unchanged even as global energy markets face a turmoil that is bigger than all previous crises combined.
While countries from Japan to United Kingdom have raised petrol and diesel prices by up to 30 per cent since the start of the West Asia conflict, fuel prices in India continue at two-year-old levels.
The war disrupted India's import of 40 per cent of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel), 90 per cent cooking gas LPG and 65 per cent natural gas (used to generate electricity, make fertilizer, turned into CNG and piped to household kitchens for cooking), but state-owned oil companies have maintained uninterrupted fuel supplies with no rationing or shortage at any point in the last 10 weeks.
But this has come at a cost - Rs 30,000 crore under-recovery or loss every month for the three oil marketing companies - Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The under-recoveries - the gap between input costs and realised retail prices - rose sharply in March/April before tapering a bit. Daily under-recoveries during April were estimated at about Rs 18 per litre on petrol and Rs 25 per litre on diesel, translating into average losses of Rs 700-1,000 crore a day for OMCs, they said.
At a news briefing on developments in West Asia, Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said prices in the international markets, on which India relies to meet 88 per cent of its oil needs, have been volatile and supplies impacted.
Crude oil prices which were around USD 70 per barrel two months ago, are now at USD 120, she said. "It has been government's endeavour to keep prices stable so far and that there is no price increase for consumers," she said. "This has hit finances of OMCs... monthly under-recoveries are of the order of Rs 30,000 crore."
She, however, refused to say if retail petrol and diesel prices will continue to hold.
"As I said, the endeavour so far has been to see that there is no price increase," she said.
The three oil marketing companies (OMCs) have worked overtime to keep the supply lines running even when demand spiked due to panic buying.
The government intervention included excise duty reductions and absorption of part of the fuel cost burden. The special additional excise duty on petrol was cut to Rs 3 per litre from Rs 13, while excise duty on diesel was reduced to zero from Rs 10 per litre.
The under-recoveries would have swelled to nearly Rs 62,500 crore had the government not cut excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 10 per litre each.
The government, Sharma said, has taken a hit of Rs 14,000 crore a month in cutting the excise duty.
The Centre's effective absorption at peak crude prices was estimated at around Rs 24 per litre for petrol and Rs 30 per litre for diesel.
The February 28 strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran triggered a sharp escalation in West Asia tensions. Energy prices surged as the conflict widened and shipping risks intensified in the Strait of Hormuz - the shipping lane through which India and other countries imported crude oil, LPG and natural gas from Gulf countries. Tanker movement was disrupted.
The companies also faced additional costs from emergency crude sourcing, higher freight charges due to vessel diversions, elevated marine insurance premiums and refinery optimisation expenses. Despite these pressures, fuel and LPG supplies remained uninterrupted across the country.
The surge in crude prices and the decision to shield consumers from higher retail prices placed significant strain on OMC balance sheets and refining margins, sources said.
They added that the measures reflected a policy decision to prioritise consumer stability and economic continuity during a global energy shock.
Sources warned that a prolonged period of elevated crude prices could lead to higher working capital borrowings and force some recalibration of capital expenditure plans. However, investments linked to refining expansion, energy security infrastructure, ethanol blending, biofuels and transition fuels would continue with government backing, they said.
India's approach contrasted with measures adopted by several other economies, where fuel prices rose sharply after the conflict-driven energy shock.
Petrol prices increased by about 34 per cent in Spain, 30 per cent in Japan, Italy and Israel, 27 per cent in Germany and 22 per cent in the United Kingdom, according to estimates. Several countries also introduced rationing, conservation advisories, emergency relief packages or fuel caps.
In India, petrol prices remained Rs 94.77 per litre and diesel at Rs 87.67, with no rationing, mobility restrictions or supply disruptions, they added.
Sharma said the revenues that OMCs earn are used to buy crude oil, build infrastructure to process it into fuel and create channels that will take the fuel to consumers.
Their capex spending is all dependent on the revenues they earn, she added.
