NEW DELHI, June 28: India’s powerful communists, who prop up Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition government, hit the streets on Tuesday to lead a 24-hour nationwide transport strike in protest at a hike in fuel prices and the privatization of blue chip companies.

Major left-wing leaders and activists, carrying red banners and flags, staged a noisy demonstration on one of the busiest streets of New Delhi, forcing police to divert traffic.

Police later brought in water cannons to disperse the crowd of hundreds which broke through security barricades at the key ITO intersection, witnesses said.

Elsewhere, there were sporadic reports of trucks and other commercial vehicles remaining off roads across many parts of the country as part of a ‘wheel-jam’ and ‘action day’ called by leftwing-supported transport unions demanding a reversal of the hike.

The cabinet last week raised gasoline and diesel prices by around seven percent to offset higher international oil prices that have prevailed since the last increase in November.

The move provoked a sharp reaction from left-wing parties, which have 61 MPs in a parliament of 545 and whose support is vital for the coalition government’s survival.

“We will oppose this inside and outside of parliament because we think that this step was totally unwarranted and will affect the common man in a big way,” Brinda Karat, politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), told reporters.

“The left parties will not blindly support the government,” Asim Ganguly, leader of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, told the crowd at the Delhi protest.

“The prime minister should realize that we made the government and can bring it down too... You cannot take our support to trouble poor people,” he added.

Left-wing parties are also opposed to the government’s decision to privatize blue chip firm Bharat Heavy Electricals. —AFP