Congress leader Milind Deora on Tuesday took to Twitter to fact check his own colleagues after party leaders called for a lowering of fuel prices in the country. This comes after West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices in the US fell below $0 per barrel for the first time in history amid the coronavirus outbreak and reduced demand. Essentially, companies now have oil, but not enough storage capacity.
Following the news, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter stating that the Narendra Modi-led government should reduce prices for petrol and diesel in India.
"Price of crude oil has fallen to unprecedented levels in the world. Yet, in our country petrol is selling for Rs. 69 and diesel for Rs. 62 per liter?" He wrote, sharing a news article on the topic. Gandhi said that any price drop in this time of danger was good.
"When will this government listen?" he wondered.
Fellow Congress leader and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor too had taken to Twitter to condemn the situation earlier on Tuesday.
"Will the shameless government that has milked the public with extortionate fuel taxes for six years finally relent and pass some of this windfall onto the beleaguered Indian consumer?" Tharoor wondered.
It must be mentioned that the WTI is an index for US oil prices, while the international benchmark is Brent crude. While a February 2020 PTI report had quoted US Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette as saying that US oil supplies to India have seem a ten-fold jump to 2,50,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the last few years, India imports a majority of oil from OPEC countries -- which means that the country follows the Brent benchmark.
According to an ANI report from Tuesday evening, while global benchmark Brent crude also fell sharply in response to the collapse of demand following reduced economic activity, it has plummeted nearly 22%, last trading at 19.92 dollars a barrel.
Following the criticism from Congress leaders, Deora took to Twitter to fact check is party members, explaining that "India imports Brent crude - not WTI".
He also pointed out that with a lockdown in place, all vehicles -- be they private cars, railways, or flights -- are sitting idle and cannot "gain from petrol and diesel price cuts".
