Row over rice supply, Congress to stage protest against Centre

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Friday said the Congress will hold protests at all district centres against the BJP government at the Centre on June 20 as he accused it of ensuring that the state doesnt get the required amount of rice to implement its Anna Bhagya scheme which provides additional 5 kg of rice for BPL familiesNoting that the state government is making all efforts to procure rice from other sources and from producing states he indicated that there may be slight delay in rolling out the scheme against the scheduled date of July oneI want to congratulate BJP national President J P Nadda as they BJP have walked the talk Shivakumar said sarcastically It was reported in the media quoting him that if BJP loses the election central schemes to the state will get affected he has kept up his word Even as the Prime Minister speaks about federal structureSpeaking to reporters here he said the BJP government at the Centre is indulging in politics of hate by ensuring that the Food Corporation of India FCI does not supply the required amount of rice to implement the scheme it is their way of registering a protest against Karnatakas poor for voting in favour of CongressBJP is a party that betrays the poor Congress party and the government condemns and protests this On on June 20 at 11 am the Congress will stage protests at all district centres across the state against the BJP government at the Centre The protests will be organised by local leadership of the party at district level all MLAs and leaders from the district will take part in the protest he addedChief Minister Siddaramaiah had recently said that the central government has stalled the sale of wheat and rice to state governments under the Open Market Sale Scheme Domestic OMSSD which prohibits the FCI from selling any additional rice to Karnataka for its Anna Bhagya schemeNoting that the state government is committed to provide 10 kg of free rice to the poor the DCM said we are in talks with neighbouring states like Telangana also Chhattisgarh which are rice producing states on the stocks available with them for procurementHe said it is not difficult for us to procure from the open market but we want to maintain transparencyThe Centre has rice stock of over seven lakh metric tonne we asked for about 288000 metric tonnes Despite having stock they are not giving As they FCI had initially agreed to give rice we had announced that we will supply from July 1 We will arrange rice somehow and roll out the scheme there may be a couple of days delay due to procurement and transportation he addedShivakumar also expressed hope that MPs from the state will come forward to help Karnataka and said we will write to them to put pressure on the centre in the interest of the stateOut of 28 MPs from the state 25 are from BJPThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever