Aam Aadmi Party leader and former Delhi minister Saurabh Bharadwaj alleged that the current Bharatiya Janata Party government in the national capital planned a scam of subsidised rice of “ ₹22,000 crore” to be played out over three years.
He alleged, through a post on X (formerly Twitter), that a corporation based in Assam and the Delhi government sent a “formal request” to the Food Corporation of India to get “heavily subsidised rice” to be distributed among the poor people of the national capital.
However, he alleged, that no such rice ever reached the poor public and was rather sold to a private company in Haryana to make profits.
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“A corporation based in Assam and the Delhi government sent a formal request to FCI to get heavily subsidised rice from FCI (Food Corporation of India). A huge quantity of 31,000 metric tons of rice per week was demanded to be distributed among the poor of Delhi,” Bharadwaj wrote in a post on X.
“This subsidised rice never reached even a single poor person. All the rice was sold to a private company in Haryana at heavy profits,” he added.
‘Scam of ₹143 crore a week’
{{/usCountry}}“This subsidised rice never reached even a single poor person. All the rice was sold to a private company in Haryana at heavy profits,” he added.
‘Scam of ₹143 crore a week’
{{/usCountry}}The AAP leader added that that this meant the Delhi government planned “a scam of ₹143 crore per week was planned for 3 years”.
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“This was a planned scam of ₹22000 crore in 3 years,” he wrote.
He also shared a video of himself describing the scam.
“The way the Delhi government and the Assam corporation were looting the people of Delhi, it was going to go on for three years,” Bharadwaj is heard saying in the video.
Manjinder Singh Sirsa is Delhi's minister of food, supplies and consumer affairs.
Bharadwaj claimed that Sirsa's department wrote to the FCI demanding 31,000 metric tons of rice every week to be sent to the corporation based in Assam. However, he said, that instead of distributing this rice amongst the poor people, the Assam based corporation was selling that rice to a private firm in Haryana for profit.
“It can be said that the Assam-based corporation was earning a commission of ₹70 crore every week, and if this would have continued for three years, this loot would have been of around ₹11,000 crore,” he said in the video.
Bharadwaj also claimed that it was the Central government's vigilance department which identified the scam.