The Congress on Friday said domestic crude oil production had reduced under Narendra Modi’s rule, confronting the Prime Minister’s claim that consumers had been saddled with skyrocketing prices because previous governments had not remedied India’s dependence on imports.

Congress spokespersons Randeep Surjewala and Gourav Vallabh said in a statement: “India’s crude oil production has fallen by 53.66 lakh metric tonnes in Modi’s regime. During the Congress-led UPA regime, domestic production of crude oil was 23.4 per cent of total consumption. Between 2014 and 2020, the domestic share of crude oil consumption is 15.3 per cent. In fact, domestic production in 2020 was the lowest in the last 18 years.”

Although 2020’s production might have been affected by the coronavirus-induced lockdown, the domestic production of crude oil has seen a downward trend in recent years, demolishing the basis of Modi’s argument that his government was more concerned about dependence on imports than previous dispensations.

Surjewala said: “The Prime Minister speaks a lot but never speaks the truth. The Modi government has reduced the budget of ONGC, the company that produces crude oil, from Rs 32,501 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 29,800 crore in 2021-22.”

The Congress spokespersons also accused the Modi government of destroying ONGC by compelling it to buy the sinking Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, saddling ONGC with a debt of Rs 24,881 crore. Even the oil exploration budget, which was Rs 11,687 crore in 2014, was Rs 4,330 crore in 2020.

On the day when petrol price crossed Rs 100 a litre for the first time in the history of independent India a few days ago, Prime Minister Modi had said: “India imported over 85 per cent of its oil needs in the 2019-20 financial year. Can a diverse and talented nation like ours be so energy import dependent? I do not want to criticise anyone but I want to say that had we focused on this subject much earlier, our middle class would not be burdened.”

The price of petrol has crossed Rs 100 a litre in Rajasthan’s Sriganganagar and Madhya Pradesh’s Anupur. While the Prime Minister seemed to be arguing that the price increased because of crude oil rates in the international market, Modi has been exceptionally lucky on this front with import prices being almost half or even less during his regime compared to what his predecessor Manmohan Singh had faced.

The Congress put out a detailed comparative chart on Friday, saying that diesel was sold for Rs 57.28 a litre when crude oil was $108 per barrel in 2014 but it is Rs 80.60 a litre now when crude is $63 per barrel.

While the import price has come down by 41 per cent, the domestic price has jumped by 40 per cent. Surjewala said: “The government is buying petrol at Rs 32.72 per litre and diesel at Rs 33.46 per litre. But the tax-jeevi Modi is looting the people. Its motto is: Hum do hamare do/diesel nabbe, petrol sau.”