PM Modi clueless about ensuring India's energy security: Congress

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remarks urging citizens to use petroleum products judiciously, saying the PM is clueless about ensuring India's energy security even after three months into the US-Iran war.

The opposition party said it is "shameless, reckless and downright immoral" that the PM is pushing the people into inconvenience, instead of building contingencies to ensure the country's economy is unaffected by this global crisis.

In a post on X, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal said, "3 months into the Iran-US war and PM Modi is still clueless about ensuring India's energy security.

"It is shameless, reckless and downright immoral that the PM is pushing the common citizen into inconvenience, instead of building contingencies to ensure our economy is unaffected by this global crisis," Venugopal said.

"When elections and petty politics are the sole priority of the PM, the end result is an impending economic catastrophe," he said.

The PM and his government must make all necessary arrangements to ensure India has ample fuel reserves and no citizen faces any hardship as a result of their lack of planning, Venugopal said.

His remarks came after Modi emphasised that the Centre is trying to shield people from the adverse impact of war and called for measures by citizens to overcome the challenges and to help the country.

Addressing a rally organised by the Telangana BJP in Hyderabad, the PM suggested measures, including judicious use of petrol and diesel, using metro rail services in cities, car pooling, maximum use of EVs, utilising railway services to send parcels, and working from home to save foreign exchange.

Due to the war, prices of petrol and fertiliser increased a lot, he said.

When there is pressure on the supply chain, difficulties increase despite various measures by the government to overcome the crisis, Modi said.

"That's why, during the global crisis, keeping the country above all else, we have to take resolutions," he said.

"We have developed work from home, virtual meetings, video conferencing and many other methods during Corona (Covid). We got habituated to it. The need of the hour is to resume those methods," he said.

Stressing the need to save foreign exchange due to the West Asia crisis, Modi called for postponing the purchase of gold and foreign visits for one year. "We have to save foreign exchange by any means," he said.

He also called for reducing use of edible oil as well as chemical fertilisers, and promoting natural farming and swadeshi products to save foreign exchange and to make the country self-reliant.