Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal on Sunday accused the Tamil Nadu government of distributing sub-standard quality of rice to the poor in the State.
Rejecting his charge, State Food Minister R. Sakkarapani countered that such allegations were being levelled since Tamil Nadu was opposing many of the BJP-led Union government’s policies.
Addressing a BJP-organised function in Chennai to propagate benefits of the Union government’s schemes, Mr Goyal said: “I have just been told that even though the Central government procures and sends good quality of rice to Tamil Nadu, the State government is distributing poor quality of rice [through the public distribution system].” He claimed that though the Centre was implementing many schemes, the State wanted to stop them from reaching the people since it was scared that the people of Tamil Nadu would start liking Mr. Modi. “They are so scared that they will not even allow the Prime Minister’s image in any of the schemes,” he claimed.
According to him, Mr. Modi personally wanted to see a prosperous, developed and corruption-free Tamil Nadu, but one could not expect this from the ruling dispensation. He accused Ministers in Tamil Nadu of criticising the Prime Minister using “foul language”.
Within hours of Mr. Goyal’s speech, Mr. Sakkarapani told journalists that the Union Minister was making politically driven comments. Referring to the BJP State president K. Annamalai’s statement that 50 more Central Ministers were expected to visit the State in the coming months, Mr. Sakkarapani claimed: “The Parliamentary elections are coming. They want to do politics with this.”
The Food Minister pointed out Mr. Goyal had not visited the PDS outlets. “The PDS shops are closed on Sunday. He did not go anywhere to visit. He is believing in his party workers. They are blaming the government. They are making him speak like this. It is quite regrettable,” Mr. Sakkarapani said.
Mr. Sakkarapani recalled that Mr. Goyal, his deputy in the Cabinet Ashwini Kumar Choubey and Union Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey had, over the past few months, commended the PDS in Tamil Nadu on separate occasions.
“During his visit to Coimbatore in June, Mr. Goyal had even invited Tamil Nadu to make a presentation of an exclusive design for ration shops it had made, and such a presentation was done during a meeting of all Food Ministers and senior officials in Delhi on July 5,” he recalled.
During Mr. Choubey’s visit to Chennai on September 27 and Mr. Pandey’s visits to Madurai, Thanjavur and Ramanathapuram districts in the first week of October, they had commended the PDS in the State, Mr. Sakkarapani pointed out.
He also wondered why Mr. Goyal could not [have waited to] enquire about it with the officials during a meeting, which he was set to chair on Sunday evening. Officials from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) inspected the quality of rice, the Minister said. As for the claim that rice was being changed, Mr. Sakkarapani questioned: “How can it be changed? FCI is controlling everything.”
Some schemes were being implemented jointly by the State and Centre. “During the past 10 years [of AIADMK government 2011-21], they did not say anything like that. Only after the DMK came to power [such claims are being made]. We are opposing many of their principles. They are making such claims only because of that,” he charged.
