Gasoline in Iran still remains among the world’s cheapest.

Parliament said it had been blindsided by the new policy and called for an emergency meeting on Sunday. Lawmakers said they would introduce legislation to reverse the price hike.

Parvaneh Salahshouri , a reformist lawmaker representing Tehran, said lawmakers had been kept in the dark. She wrote on Twitter that Parliament was powerless to act and only a facade for a sham democracy. Many constituents called her office to complain, she said.

Several prominent Shiite clerics urged officials to backtrack before it was too late.

“This decision is very unfortunate and worrisome,” said a statement by Ayatollah Safi Golpaygani. “We ask that Parliament reverse this move.”

President Hassan Rouhani has said that the government will not benefit financially from the price increase because the money is to be returned to about 60 million needy Iranians in the form of cash subsidies. But hardly anyone across the political divide seemed to believe him.

Mr. Rouhani acknowledged days ago that Iran faced a deficit amounting to nearly two-thirds of its annual $45 billion budget.

Iranians took to the streets on Saturday on foot and in cars. On major highways and roads across Iran, people turned off their vehicles and sat for hours, intentionally creating backups for miles and miles.

“They are out of touch with the public,” said Minoo, who works at a cafe in Tehran but asked that her last name not be published out of security concern s. “Our transportation cost has now tripled, but our salaries remain the same.”