Mumbai, Mar 1 (IANS): Maharashtra's ppposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) staged a noisy protest on Wednesday against the steep hike in cooking gas prices for domestic and commercial users and demanded a rollback.

A majority of the MVA legislators from Congress-Nationalist Congress Party-Shiv Sena- UBT demonstrated with banners and placards on the footsteps of the Maharashtra Legislature.

They raised slogans against the government for inflicting yet another hike on gas prices which have made life miserable for poor and middle-classes in the country.

The Centre on Wedneday announced a hike of Rs 50 on a domestic LPG cylinder of 14.2 kg, and Rs 350.50 on a commercial cylinder of 19 kg.

Accordingly, the prices of cooking gas cylinders have now shot up from Rs 1,053 to Rs 1,103, and of the commercial cylinders prices from Rs 1,769 to Rs 2,119.50.

For Mumbaikars, it will be a double whammy as the gas cylinder hike has come simultaneously with the steep increase of Rs 5 per litre on buffalo milk from Wednesday, the staple for millions of households.

These increases, coming ahead of the festival and wedding seasons, are expected to have a huge cascading effect on the prices of all foodstuffs in the markets, including the popular "cutting chai" of the ordinary citizens, milk products, lassis, shakes, milk-based sweets, confectionary, etc.

State NCP President Jayant Patil and Congress President Nana Patole who joined the agitation, slammed the Centre's policies that have resulted in the runaway inflation and demanded a roll-back of the gas price hikes.

They also called upon the state government to provide help to the farmers in the state, including compensation for crop losses, power supply for 12 hours and other demands or the ruling alliance leaders should "vacate their chairs".

The MVA leaders vowed to corner the government on inflation, farmers woes, growing unemployment, safety of women and other burning issues both inside and outside the legislature in the ongoing Budget Session here.