Cong-BJP face off over uphill battle in launching Anna Bhagya scheme

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The political battleground in Karnataka intensified on Tuesday as the ruling Congress and the principal opposition BJP faced off over the uphill battle of the implementation of the ‘Anna Bhagya’ scheme, a free ten kg rice scheme for the people below the poverty line in the state by the Congress.

Opposing the centre’s involvement over the suspension of rice from the Food Corporation of India, the Congress party held a statewide protest. In Bengaluru, the protest took place at the Freedom Park, in which the state’s deputy CM DK Shivakumar led the agitation against the Centre, joined by other leaders including Minister Ramalinga Reddy.

“At first the central government agreed to provide rice to the state and now they withdrew it. We are not asking for the rice for free. The BJP has no moral rights to protest against us and they can talk to the centre about the supplying of rice instead of politicizing”, said DK Shivakumar.

The leaders cooked rice at the venue and marked their agitation against the centre. However, the former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai alleged the state government of making excuses to delay the implementation of the scheme and blamed it on the central government.

“They are protesting so that the scheme gets postponed and trying to save crores by it. And they will use the name of the Prime Minister for their delaying tactics”, Bommai charged at the Congress. The state’s transport department will not have money to buy diesel, he said, targeting the free bus scheme in the state, adding the schemes would burden the state resource quickly.

In a rebuttal to Bommai’s comment that the state government should give 15kg of rice as Modi is already providing 5kg to the low-income family, DKS said it was the ChiefMinister of the state Siddaramaiah who launched the free 5kg scheme in 2013 and increased it to 7kg later, which the BJP reduced to 2kgs. However, the BJP leaders including Bommai and Ashok were detained during the protest.