South Central

LPG Crisis Fears & Why Opposition Wants Impeachment of CEC Gyanesh Kumar | South Central 66

Hosts discuss the LPG crisis and what that could mean for India going forward. They also look at the recent no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and the one anticipated against Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.

Dhanya Rajendran, Pooja Prasanna

Published:13th Mar, 2026 at 7:34 PM

In the first segment of this week’s South Central, hosts Dhanya Rajendran and Pooja Prasanna discuss the LPG crisis and what that could mean for India going forward. They are joined by energy journalist and policy expert Shreya Jai, and climate journalist and researcher Aruna Chandrasekhar.

Tune in to the discussions here

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Dhanya starts the session by asking whether the oil crisis will only hit cooking gas. “The global perspective is that this is possibly the largest block in oil supply in our recent history. On one hand, Trump says this is a small price to pay vis-à-vis safety, but the other side of the story is about import-dependent countries being pushed to find alternatives and pay huge prices. In India, of course, the question is about how a lot of this was foreseeable, which begs the question of why there was no preparation. There is a lot of confusion as well, leading to panic buying and anxiety as well,” says Aruna.

Pooja says that while India can buy crude oil from Russia, we have known of the tensions in the Strait of Hormuz for a while. “Knowing this, could we not have diversified our oil purchasing?” she asks.

Shreya says that this is also a problem with planning. “We are facing a twin problem– oil and petroleum. For oil, the government says we have some reserves, but for gas, we do not have much strategic reserves. In the last decade, we did try to diversify gas supplies, like going to Venezuela. One reason is that we have a strategic partnership with West Asia, and we did not want to disrupt that. The other reason is how we were relying on several domestic policies to be successful. We had plans to introduce natural-based gases to reduce fossil fuel dependency, and the project has been successful to a certain extent, but it is still short of our usage,” she adds.

Dhanya points out that time is crucial here, and even if we find alternative partners, it will take time, and the trickle effect will soon hit several other industries. Shreya says the time aspect is true. “The plan is probably to put in place some pit stop arrangement to partner with some non-West Asian players,” she says.

Dhanya further speaks about the lak og clarity regarding the impact of the crisis. “This non-communication is a feature of this government. Some people say now that there will be a grave shortage, and the government says it is manageable. There is no direction on how households or industries can prepare,” she says.

Pooja points out how the Union government has doubled LPG in the last ten years. “But is that enough? What more could we have done, in terms of sustainable energy?”

“There has been a push for solar panels and the like. But the LPG prices have also been raised, and while we speak about energy independence, we are also scrambling to look for supplies,” says Aruna.

Shreya says that while moving people away from burning charcoal to gas and solar panels has impacted rural lives well, a country which has such fuel import dependence will have to import more if one section of the country cannot be shifted to renewable sources. “None of this happened in a streamlined manner where commercial users, for example, are mandated to switch to these sources of energy,” she adds.

The panel further delves into what a prolonged conflict in West Asia can mean for India and how this may start reflecting in other sectors.

In the second segment of the episode, the hosts discuss the recent developments in the Parliament with respect to the no-confidence motion against Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and the one anticipated against Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. They are joined by journalist Sravasti Dasgupta, a senior political correspondent at The Wire.

Sravasti starts the discussion by saying that this is not about the numbers but perhaps about the political statement made by the motions to remove the Speaker and the Election Commissioner. “Several Opposition members said that this is about safeguarding the Constitution and the political institutions of the country. This, they say, is also about the Union government’s lack of communication and attack on institutions like the ECI and Parliament,” she says.

Pooja points out how the Speaker Om Birla has been favouring the ruling BJP and hindering the Opposition from speaking.

“I think what is really interesting, since the no-confidence motion was how they were told to only stick to the motion and not about the context. Even during Amit Shah’s speech, they completely forgot about the motion, and he spoke entirely about Rahul Gandhi. The PM was also absent, and this is the first time that a PM has not been present when a Speaker is being tested with a no-confidence motion,” says Sravasti.

The panel then delves into how the Speaker behaved after he returned to the Parliament after the motion was rejected, and how the suppression of dissent is becoming a hallmark of this government.

Tune in to this episode here

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Audio Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:03:22 - Headlines

00:13:57- LPG Fears

00:51:05-CEC Impeachment

1:14:11 - Recommendations

References

Police atrocities