Lithuania Premier Quits Over Price Rises : Soviets: President Gorbachev and the leader of the Russian Federation resolve a dispute over the budget.

In a stunning announcement, Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene resigned today after the Baltic republic’s Parliament rejected price rises she had sponsored.

“I resign with my Cabinet of ministers,” she told Parliament. Local journalists said the session was broadcast live on local radio.

Several deputies called on ministers responsible for the price rises to step down.

Parliament later voted to accept Prunskiene’s resignation. There were 71 votes in favor, 8 against and 22 abstentions, the journalists said.

Prunskiene was one of the Baltic republic’s most popular politicians and had been at the forefront of its struggle to gain independence from Moscow. She became prime minister shortly after Lithuania declared independence last March.

In Moscow, meanwhile, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Russian republic leader Boris N. Yeltsin today resolved a dispute over the 1991 budget that had threatened to cripple the Soviet economy, Tass news agency said.

Tass quoted Yeltsin’s deputy as saying the position of the Parliament of the Russian Federation was defended. Russia had said it would withhold nearly $50 billion requested for the Soviet budget above its usual contribution.

“Yeltsin defended the budget of the Russian Federation and carried out the will of the Supreme Soviet of the (Russian) republic,” said the deputy head of the Parliament, Ruslan Khasbulatov.

The wording suggests that Gorbachev backed down on demands that Russia increase its planned contribution to the central budget by $48 billion.

The Russian budget allocates only $42 billion for central government projects out of total republican spending plans of $270 billion.

The Russian Federation has always provided the lion’s share of the Soviet budget. Gorbachev has warned that salaries might not be paid in the coming year and that social services could be seriously disrupted if its funds were withheld.

The independent Interfax news agency said a final agreement between all 15 Soviet republics on stabilizing the Soviet economy will be signed tonight.