New Delhi: TMC MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said that the cooking gas is so expensive that the Government want us to eat raw vegetables in her speech on debate on hike of gas prices.

She questioned the Government that the cooking gas is so expensive that one will have to resort to this and she bit into a brinjal to show means that. A TMC MP stood up in Lok Sabha, flashed a raw brinjal and then took a bite out of it during a discussion on the issue of price rise, underscoring that high gas prices are making cooking prohibitively expensive for the poor.

I thank the chair for allowing a debate on price rise, adding that it has taken a long time for even the debate to take place, the MP said. Coming after suspension of four Congress MPs and continued disruptions that forced two adjournments, the Lok Sabha started debating price rise today. The Congress MPs’ suspension was also revoked. The prices of LPG cylinder have been raised four times in the last few months, from ₹ 600, it is now 1,100, she said.

She demanded that the cylinder rates must be scaled back. In July, cooking gas LPG price was hiked by ₹ 50 per cylinder, the eighth increase in rates in the last one year. Non-subsidized LPG now costs ₹ 1,053 per 14.2-kg cylinder in Delhi. Common households pay non-subsidized rates for the cooking gas they buy after the Government restricted subsidy to just poor beneficiaries who got connections under the Ujjwala scheme.