RTI: How did fuel prices remain stable during Gujarat, Karnataka polls?

India Today: New Delhi: Saturday, October 27, 2018.

Petrol prices have hit record highs this year. People are angry. The government is worried. This forced Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, on October 04, 2018, to announce a marginal relief for citizens with an excise duty cut of Rs 1.50 and another Re 1 drop by oil marketing companies, taking the cut in fuel prices to Rs 2.50. The government also appealed to the states to match the Centre's effort by reducing value-added tax by Rs 2.50, so that the total benefit to citizens would be at least Rs 5.

Around a month before Jaitley's announcement on September 02, 2018 Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had blamed "external factors" for the rise in the domestic price of petrol and diesel. Was Dharmendra Pradhan right in saying that external factors were responsible for the rise in fuel prices? Because if that was the case, then how was it that a month later, Arun Jaitley brought them down by Rs 2.50 and ensured a reduction of Rs 5 in many states?

The petroleum minister is partially right that external factors, like crude oil prices, do play a role in determining the domestic prices of petroleum products. But neither he nor the finance minister mentioned that since May 2014, the Modi government has increased the central excise duty 12 times. In these 4 years, the central excise on petrol went up by 211%, and the one on diesel by 443%. Facing public ire before elections in five states, the Modi government announced a marginal relief to the people. And no external factor stopped it from bringing down petroleum prices.