Taking a dig at the Opposition parties over their continuous attacks on Central government over rising fuel prices across the country, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said that the challenges thrown up by the increase in the international price of crude oil cannot be resolved by either the tweets or television bytes of some opposition leaders. Jaitley took to social media site Facebook and said, “The problem is serious. The oil producing nations have capped their production, thus creating a demand-supply mismatch.” Jaitley also stated that India’s current account deficit (CAD) is worsening and the rupee is falling due to the high crude oil prices and the strengthening dollar.

Further taking a dig at Congress President Rahul Gandhi who has been extremely critical of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government over hike in fuel prices, Jailey said, “Let me categorically assure all that there is no going back on deregulation of oil prices. Even Rahul Gandhi, whose party had inflicted a double-digit inflation on India during the past five years of UPA-II, gave television bytes and released tweets advocating a price reduction.”

The NDA Government has an exemplary record of fiscal prudence, the Union minister said adding that his party has maintained the gradual glide path since 2014 to bring down fiscal deficit and will continue to do so. On Thursday, the government announced a total relief of Rs 2.5 a litre on petrol and diesel prices and also asked the states to lower down VAT collection to bring the total relief of Rs 5 on fuel prices. Arun Jaitley said that higher-than-expected tax collections gave the government some comfort.

“The Centre’s oil tax revenues remain static. The Centre charges a fixed amount. What the Centre gets as tax revenue, 42% of it is passed on to the States. The States independently charge their VAT, the Senior BJP leader added.