Last October Puducherry government increased bus fares unilaterally by 70 percent. After a series of protests, Government retracted the fare hike temporarily and constituted a panel to study the bus fare system. Now when Tamil Nadu government suddenly increased bus fares about seventy percent, the private bus operators in Puducherry raised the bus fares on their own without due permission from Puducherry government. This created a huge resentment among the people of Puducherry.
Three left parties- CPI, CPI(ML) and CPI(M)- with a demand to roll back the increased bus fares, organised road blockade in front of the bus stand on February 8. Hundreds of activists led by S.Balasubramanian, CPI(ML), R.Viswanathan, CPI, and R.Rajangam CPI(M) were arrested by the police.
On 13 February CPIML took out a campaign at various locations against bus fare hike. Puducherry District committee member Palani led the campaign.
