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DMK, TMC will join Left's protest against price hike

The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu and its electoral ally, the Tamil Maanila Congress, will join the nation-wide agitation called by the left parties on February 9 to protest against the Centre's decision to increase the issue price of essentials supplied through the public distribution system, cooking gas and urea.

Announcing the decision in Madras, DMK president and Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi said his party would organise demonstrations in front of central government offices all over the state on the day.

On the Centre's decision to roll back prices for those below the poverty line, he said the Centre was supplying 46,000 tonnes of rice at Rs3.50 a kilo for them and 64,000 tonnes at Rs7 for those above the poverty line. The latter rate has now been increased to Rs9.05 a kilo.

Karunanidhi said that since the state government had decided not to pass on the burden of the increase to any of the people, it would have to bear an additional subsidy of about Rs1.56 billion. This will push the total subsidy for rice supplied through the PDS and for procurement of paddy to Rs11.56 billion, he said.

TMC president G K Moopanar said that since his party is joining the February 9 agitation, its proposed picketing programme in Tamil Nadu, scheduled for February 15, has been cancelled.

The party meeting to be held in Madurai on Friday, February 5, to decide on the strategy for the picketing programme has also been cancelled.

Moopanar said Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjit had contacted him on phone and sought his party's support for the February 9 agitation.

An urgent meeting of the TMC's political affairs committee was therefore held today where it was decided to join the stir.

UNI

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