BJP wants India’s ration beneficiaries to suffer, says Sisodia

Manish Sisodia refuted Patra’s allegations that Kejriwal was “misleading people” on the matter.

Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Sunday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of favouring large-scale theft of food grains meant to be distributed under the public distribution system (PDS) across states, turning the political heat on the Centre for “blocking” the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government’s doorstep delivery of ration scheme.

This is the second time this year that the long-pending scheme has been stalled due to differences between the Delhi government and the Centre.

Hours after a press conference by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra on the issue — which came soon after a press briefing by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal — Sisodia took on the BJP for attacking the AAP government on the scheme, which has become yet another point of contention between the Delhi government and the Centre.

In his briefing on Sunday morning, Kejriwal urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow the state government to launch the doorstep ration delivery scheme, a day after Delhi Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Anil Baijal rejected the scheme. Baijal’s office has, however, disputed this claim and said the L-G did not “reject” the scheme, but only “advised for the constitutional scheme of things to be followed in letter and spirit”.

Sisodia refuted Patra’s allegations that Kejriwal was “misleading people” on the matter.

“Patra made two large points on doorstep delivery of ration. He said the current system is efficient enough. So, he means the BJP is fine with theft and pilferage in the PDS system. So, the BJP will resist any proposed change. They want 80 crore ration beneficiaries across the country to suffer because of large-scale theft of ration,” Sisodia said in a video briefing.

“Then he (Patra) alleged that we (the AAP) are trying to make money out of the scheme by levying additional charges on ration beneficiaries. He does not know that the central government orders allow states to charge ₹3 per kg for processing wheat under PDS schemes. In Haryana, the BJP government charges ₹3 for providing flour to PDS beneficiaries. In Delhi, we proposed a charge of ₹2 for processing wheat as well as ensuring doorstep delivery. Patra hardly said anything about such things and chose to invest his time on misleading people and ranting against Arvind Kejriwal,” Sisodia said.

This is the second time this year that the long-pending scheme has been stalled due to differences between the Delhi government and the Centre. The scheme was to be launched on March 25, but the Union food and consumers affairs ministry wrote to the Delhi government on March 19 raising two objections to the scheme — the use of the term “mukhyamantri (chief minister)” for a scheme involving the distribution of food grains allocated under the National Food Security Act (NFSA), and that any change in the delivery mechanism in the NFSA requires an amendment that can be done only by Parliament.

Patra said no state government has the right to tweak central government schemes.

“If Arvind Kejriwal wants to distribute ration outside the national programmes under the central government, he can purchase grains at notified rates and do it. But no state has the right to tweak a central scheme being implemented uniformly across the country.”

Referring to Kejriwal’s statement that ration shops may turn “super-spreaders”, Patra said, “Arvind Kejriwal does not see potential super-spreaders when it comes to supporting large gathering of farmers in Delhi’s borders and misleading them against the central government, but he sees potential super-spreaders in ration shops.”

He also said that by not implementing the “one nation, one ration card” scheme, the Delhi government has deprived millions of migrant workers of subsidised food grains.

Patra further claimed that the Aadhaar authentication record fared poorly in Delhi when compared to the national average of 80% and that the Kejriwal government also stopped the operation of electronic point-of-sales (e-PoS) machines that allow biometric verification. “We will never know whom Arvind Kejriwal is giving ration to. He wanted to launch a ration diverting system. He wanted to start a big scam as the ration would not reach the right person and nobody knows where it might have gone. The Centre has prevented a big scam from taking place,” said Patra.

Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta and other senior leaders of the party on Sunday criticised the Delhi chief minister for accusing the Centre for stalling the doorstep delivery of ration.

“The Centre has said that the ration given under the central government schemes, which is applicable in the entire country, can’t be used for doorstep delivery. The CM should tell people why the ration given by the Centre under PMGKAY has not been distributed completely,” said Gupta

On Saturday, Delhi food and civil supplies minister Imran Hussain labelled efforts to stall the scheme “politically motivated”.

“The L-G has rejected the scheme on two grounds – that it is not approved by the central government, and that there’s an ongoing court case on the scheme. No approval to launch such a scheme is required as per existing law. Nevertheless, we have written six letters to the Centre since 2018 apprising them of this scheme at every stage. We also changed the name of the scheme according to their letter dated May 19. What further approval is required? It makes even less sense to stop the roll out of this revolutionary scheme due to an ongoing court case. There have already been two hearings on this case and no stay has been ordered by the Court. Moreover, Central government is a party to the same case and in their affidavit too, they haven’t objected to rollout of the scheme,” the Delhi minister said

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