Excise duty cut on petrol, diesel with eye on elections in four states: TMC member Saket Gokhale
GST
Dated:- 27-3-2026
PTI
New Delhi, Mar 27 (PTI) The excise duty cut on petrol and diesel has been done with an eye on the upcoming assembly elections in four states and not because the government cared for consumers, TMC Rajya Sabha member Saket Gokhale.
Participating in a discussion on the Finance Bill 2026 in the Upper House, Gokhale demanded an assurance from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that fuel prices will not be increased after April 29, when voting is completed in four states Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala.
After the excise cut was announced, he said ministers of the government have been saying “since morning how the Modi government is taking a hit at its own resources, to its own revenues, instead of increasing petrol and diesel prices”.
“This is happening because four major states are going to elections. The only reason that this excis
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e rupee?” He further said, “That is the commitment that the finance minister should give today, that this excise duty is permanent. We are not going to raise prices after April 29.” Gokhale alleged that “the government does not think about people, they only think about elections.” Sanjay Seth of BJP, however, said the war in West Asia has spiked crude oil price and most countries in the world have hiked their domestic oil prices.
“But the government cut excise duty instead of passing the burden on common people… this shows how Prime Minister Narendra Modi is concerned about the common people,” he asserted.
Taking part in the discussion, Shaktisinh Gohil of Congress said the Budget did not have anything for the poor and the middle class, while the benefits have only been provided to the rich and big corporate houses.
While flagging lack of steps to tackle high unemployment among the youth, he also lashed out at the government for removing import duty on items like so
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ng business has improved, the ground reality is different. It has become “ease of doing harassment and a mode of tax terrorism”, he alleged.
“In 2024, 40,000 MSMEs and 10,000 startups were forced to shut,” Mittal said, observing that first, the tax liability of a business is calculated, followed by raid on a shopkeeper and officials have the power of immediate arrest.
He also called for effective utilisation of public money, saying Rs 48,000 crore was allocated for Smart City Yojana but “we don't know of a single smart city”.
He also alleged cost overruns and missed deadliness on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project.
S Niranjan Reddy of YSRCP urged the government to “please do something out of the box for ensuring that the defence Budget and the defence allocation goes up”.
He called for improvement in judicial infrastructure and justice delivery mechanism.
Pointing at several capacity constraints, Reddy highlighted the huge pendency of cases in various cou
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