IANS

Lucknow, Jun 29: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Monday demanded the withdrawal of the fuel price hike and said protests will be held against it in all the districts of the state July 6.

Announcing this in a statement, she termed the Congress-led central government's decision to jack up the fuel prices as "anti-people".

"The decision was evidently aimed at benefiting certain industrial houses close to the Congress leadership, at the cost of the common man who is already suffering due to the pressure of rising prices of all essential commodities," she alleged.

Reacting to the withdrawal of government control over petrol prices, she said: "That clearly shows the government's intention to allow further hike in the price of petrol later."

Taking a dig at the Congress' slogan "Congress ka haath aam admi ke saath" (Congress is with the common man), she said: "With the repeated hikes in petrol price together with that of other essential commodities, the Congress has proved that its much touted slogan was a hoax and only aimed at misleading the man on the street."