Strikes over fuel prices hit three Indian states

By Sujoy Dhar

KOLKATA, India, June 5 (Reuters) - Strikes shut down transport, businesses and schools in three communist-run Indian states on Thursday after a rise in fuel prices, but there was little sense of real fury against the government.

Communist allies of the ruling coalition kicked off a week of protests against Wednesday's price hikes by calling one-day strikes in the three states they rule, West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, leaving streets, offices and airports largely deserted.

They say the government should have done more to insulate consumers from high global oil prices, even though it only passed on a fraction of surging crude costs when it raised heavily subsidised prices of petrol and diesel by about 10 percent. [ID:nDEL56765]

Some people said the left's protest was cynical politics that would only make life worse for ordinary people.

"I don't support the strike. The politicians call them at the drop of a hat," said Manisha Mukherjee, who had gone to Kolkata's airport to see off a relative only to find the flight had been cancelled. "This is not in the common people's interest."

Rickshaw puller Anwar Ali saw things differently.

"The government does not care for poor people like us," he said. "Today they have raised fuel prices, tomorrow the prices of other essentials will go up and we will continue to suffer."

Protesters, some waving red flags, stopped trains and buses in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, and even forced people out of cabs to enforce the dawn-to-dusk strike, witnesses and police said. Rain also helped keep people off the streets.