DW BUREAU / Chandigarh The Congress will 'gherao' Punjab Raj Bhavan on March 1 in protest against "rising" fuel prices. Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar on Thursday said the party will gherao the Raj Bhavan to take the people's voice against this "cruel" rise in prices of essential commodities to the Centre. "We will keep pressurising the central regime, which has completely forsaken the interest of common man, to force it to control spiralling prices," Jakhar said in a statement here. Slamming the Centre, Jakhar dubbed the increase of Rs 25 per cooking gas cylinder as "atrocious" saying the government has already added a sum of Rs 100 to the gas cylinder price in the last one month. Condemning a similar upward trend in petrol and diesel prices, Jakhar said it is happening when the crude oil prices are half of what it was during the term of Manmohan Singh's government. "The Modi regime is looting people by burdening them with these extra prices", alleged Jakhar. The present Central regime is working at the "behest" of corporates while letting people of the country "suffer", Jakhar said and warned that no dispensation can exist by "torturing" the public. "That's why the Congress has planned this protest to intimate the Punjab Governor about the condition of the public so that he could forward his report to the Centre," he said. In an unusual protest against the LPG price hike, a Congress spokesperson on Thursday conducted a press conference sitting on an empty cylinder as the party accused the Modi government of being "anti-people." The Congress' attack on the government came after cooking gas price was hiked by Rs 25 per cylinder across all categories, including subsidised fuel and those availed by Ujjwala scheme beneficiaries. Hitting out at the government, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said price of domestic gas cylinder has been increased by Rs 200 in the last three months and petrol and diesel prices have moved "towards hitting diesel century." "The pitch of the Modi government, which is batting for billionaire friends on both ends of the economy, is full of high prices and inflation for the common people," Priyanka Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi using cricketing analogy. Later, at the party press conference on the LPG price hike, Congress spokesperson Supriya Shrinate and party secretary (communication) Vineet Punia sat on empty cylinders to register their protest against the government move. The mike was also kept on a gas cylinder. (editor@dailyworld.in)