"Quickly Fill Up Your Tanks": Rahul Gandhi's 'Election' Advice For India

With state elections ending on Monday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi slipped in a dig at the government two days before the final voting day, advising people to fill up their fuel tanks and warning that a price hike was looming.

"Quickly fill up your tanks. Modi government's 'election' offer is about to end," he wrote in a Hindi tweet.

फटाफट Petrol टैंक फुल करवा लीजिए।

मोदी सरकार का ‘चुनावी' offer ख़त्म होने जा रहा है। pic.twitter.com/Y8oiFvCJTU

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) March 5, 2022

With international oil prices soaring past $100 a barrel, petrol and diesel prices - locked by state-run oil companies because of the elections - are likely to be hiked after polls get over next week.

International crude oil prices have shot above $110 a barrel for the first time since mid-2014 on fears that oil and gas supplies from energy giant Russia could be disrupted, either by the conflict in Ukraine or retaliatory western sanctions.

The basket of crude oil India buys rose above $102 per barrel on March 1, the highest since August 2014, according to information from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) of the oil ministry, news agency PTI reported earlier this week.

The average price per barrel of the same crude was $81.5 when petrol and diesel prices were locked in in early November last year.

"With state elections getting over next week, we expect daily fuel price hikes to restart across both gasoline and diesel," investment banking company JP Morgan said in a report.

The seventh and final phase of polling for the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly is on Monday and the counting of votes is slated for March 10.

Domestic fuel prices - which are directly linked to international oil prices as India imports 85 per cent of its oil needs - have not been revised for a record 118 days in a row.

Rates are supposed to be revised daily but state-owned fuel retailers Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum froze rates when dates were announced for elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and three other states.

Petrol costs Rs 95.41 a litre in Delhi and diesel is priced at Rs 86.67. This price is after accounting for the excise duty cut and a reduction in the VAT rate by the state government.

Before these tax reductions, petrol price had touched an all-time high of Rs 110.04 a litre and diesel came for Rs 98.42.