Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister has flayed the Congress-led central government for its "shrewd design" of hiking the fuel prices after the Lok Sabha elections.

Mayawati, however, announced relief for the state's consumers by freezing the local levy, which would have otherwise witnessed a proportionate increase.

Addressing a press conference, Mayawati said, "While the central government has no concern for the common man, we in the state have decided not to enhance our levy that we had reduced in June 2008 in the larger interest of the people of the state."

The government Wednesday allowed state-run oil firms to increase prices of transport fuels, resulting in gasoline becoming dearer by Rs.4 per litre and diesel by Rs.2 per litre, following successive increase in global crude prices.

Mayawati said, "The petrol price hike has exposed a shrewd design of the central government, which had announced a reduction in the prices sometime before the Lok Sabha elections."

"Sure enough that reduction was aimed at influencing the voter and once the Congress party had reaped the poll harvest, it had brazenly decided to once again hike the prices," she said.

Mayawati said this was being done "to fill the coffers of industrial houses who had funded the Congress party's election, while the interest of the poor commoners was being blatantly compromised."

The Congress was only concerned about the rich "whose interests it was ready to serve at the expense of the basic needs of the poor", she said.

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