NEW DELHI: CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta has taken his crusade against gas price hike and M Veerappa Moily to the Election Commission, promptly evoking a sharp response from the oil minister.

In an April 30 letter to chief election commissioner V S Sampath, Dasgupta alleged the oil minister went out of his way to overturn the directives issued by his officials on gas price revision.

In a quick riposte, Moily said Dasgupta and his "accomplices" in the ministry – an indirect reference to a senior official in the ministry's exploration division widely suspected of leaking official documents – were running a "malicious and misleading" campaign against the new gas pricing mechanism "on behalf of vested interests".

Dasgupta has been opposing the new mechanism on the ground it was being brought in by Moily to help Reliance Industries Ltd even after the company failed to fulfill supply commitments.

The CPI leader alleged Moily circumvented the EC by ordering that new gas prices be notified for the April-June quarter immediately after the poll code ends. This, Dasgupta said, was against the norm laid down in the new policy that "prices would be notified in advance on a quarterly basis".

Moily said there was no mala-fide in his order and it did not constitute circumvention of the EC order since it asked the April-June price, based on the formula approved by the Cabinet and notified on January 10, be notified as soon as the poll code ends.

He also said it was not being done to help any particular company but promote investment and state-run companies would be the biggest beneficiaries.