NEW DELHI: Leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Friday said Congress will soon take up the issue of the Centre’s E20 ethanol-blended fuel programme.In a social media post on X, Rahul shared a video and accused the government of “stealing directly out of people’s pockets”.“This E20 issue is a very serious matter. Usually, we say, ‘Daal mein kuch kaala hai.’ But here, the whole daal is black,” the Congress leader said.“Brothers and sisters, this is a matter of priorities. In any campaign, we have to decide the order in which issues are taken up. The problem right now is that there is so much corruption that there is a long list of issues we have to prioritise. But don’t worry. We will take up the E20 issue in a big way because it is damaging people’s cars and scooters and their lives and is, quite literally, stealing money directly out of their pockets,” he added.The remarks came days after Congress alleged that the Centre’s push for E20 petrol had increased fuel costs for consumers while primarily benefiting ethanol producers, claiming motorists were paying more despite assurances of cheaper fuel.Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that since March 2025, regular fuel stations across the country had been supplying “practically only E20 petrol”.Referring to earlier statements by Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, he said the government had claimed ethanol blending would bring the price of diesel down to Rs 50 per litre and provide a petrol alternative at Rs 55 per litre, but no such reduction had materialised.“On the contrary, according to an independent analysis, between April 2023 and March 2026, consumers collectively spent an additional approximately Rs 88,234 crore to compensate for the lower mileage from ethanol-blended fuel,” he wrote in a post on X.
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He further claimed that the Centre could have reduced the retail price of E20 petrol to offset the lower fuel efficiency and noted that NITI Aayog’s Ethanol Roadmap had recommended financial and tax incentives for E10 and E20 fuels to compensate consumers.“E20 has stripped the average middle-class Indian of options, imposed higher fuel costs on them, and placed an extra burden on the very vehicle they saved for years to buy. If any segment has benefited the most from E20, it is the ethanol producers,” Ramesh said.However, the Centre has maintained that ethanol blending helps reduce India’s dependence on imported crude oil and supports farmers by creating demand.
