Several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, were detained while protesting against the Karnataka government in Bengaluru on Tuesday to counter the Congress’ demonstration.
The BJP staged a protest against Congress government in the state to counter its demonstration which was held against the Centre for not “providing” rice to the state and joined by Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar and many Congress workers.
“We are protesting against Congress government because they are telling a lie. When they announced free rice to Karnataka’s poor people they didn’t ask for anything because it’s a big project,” former minister and BJP leader R Ashoka said.
The war over the supply of rice in Karnataka continued with protests from the ruling and opposition parties.
Speaking to the media, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah accused the Central government of doing “hate politics”.
“Food Corporation of India (FCI) wrote a letter to us saying that they have agreed to supply rice to our state. On 14th June, we got another letter stating that we can’t supply rice and wheat. What does it mean? Why they have agreed if there was no stock in FCI? They are doing hate politics. This is anti-poor,” he said.
However, Deputy CM of the state DK Shivakumar said that the Karnataka government doesn’t need free rice as it is capable to buy.
“We have spoken to Punjab, Chhattisgarh and other neighbouring states. We are going to buy grain from them. I request the central government not to do politics, you are not giving your rice, it is farmers’ rice. We don’t want free rice from anyone, the Karnataka government is capable of buying it,” Shivakumar said.
Earlier too, Siddaramaiah had alleged that the Union Government was not allowing the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to sell rice to the state to roll out its “Anna Bhagya” scheme which envisages giving Below Poverty Line household and Antyodaya card holders 10 kg of food grains for free starting from July 1.
The “Anna Bhagya” scheme is one of the five election promises made by Congress ahead of the Karnataka assembly election. In the State Five kg of rice is already being given to members of BPL households. Now through this scheme, Congress wants to enhance the free grain to 10 kg.
However, reacting to Siddaramaiah’s allegations that the Centre asked FCI to stop the direct sale of rice to states after the Congress government requested for additional sale of rice from the Corporation for its ambitious Anna Bhagya programme, Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya on Saturday said that the State government is lying as the Centre’s decision was decided four days prior.
In a tweet, the BJP MP shared the minutes of the Inter-ministerial committee meeting and said that the meeting suggested the decision of changing the Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) policy full four days before Karnataka requested the regional Food Corporation of India.
“Sri Siddaramaiah is trying to mislead people of Karnataka blatantly that Union Govt deliberately changed OMSS policy AFTER Karnataka Govt requested for additional sale of rice. But these minutes of the Inter-ministerial committee meeting dated 8th June, i.e, full 4 days BEFORE State Govt requested regional FCI, show that the change in OMSS policy was already suggested in view of the increase in price of wheat & rice across the country. It also very clearly shows that the process to reconsider this policy had started way back in early May by inter ministerial committee, much before even the Karnataka elections were held,” Surya said in his tweet.