Fuel price hike condemned

CHENNAI: Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday strongly condemned the hike in the petrol price and asked the Centre to give up any move to hike the prices of diesel and cooking gas in the coming days.To a question, the CM said already people had been affected by the rise in prices of essential commodities and the root cause of price rise was hike in the prices of petro products. As such I request the Centre to give up any move to increase prices of diesel and cooking gas, she added. Asked if sales tax on petrol and diesel would be reduced like other States, Jayalalithaa said the new government had just taken over and the issue would be discussed soon.