Quoting an official report that recommended a drastic cut in the coverage of the Food Security Act, the Congress on Saturday hit out at the Modi government for its “anti-poor” approach and stressed that the move would hit the common man.
The Shanta Kumar Committee report, which recommends reducing the number of eligible beneficiaries from 67 to 40 per cent, indicates that the BJP-led government proposes to “cruelly deprive 2/3rd Indians of their Right to Food guaranteed to them by the previous Congress government,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said.
The spokesperson also took umbrage at the remarks made by senior BJP leader Shanta Kumar, who is chairman of the committee, that the Congress had enacted a “Vote Security Bill” not a “Food Security Bill.” “It is a crude attempt to make a mockery of crores of India’s toiling poor,” he added.
Pointing out that the Food Security Act has been implemented by only nine States and two Union Territories, he wanted the Prime Minister to give a deadline for implementation of the Act across all States.
Asking the Modi government to spell out its long-term food security policy, Mr. Surjewala wanted to know whether the BJP had “a devious design to abrogate this statutory right and principal responsibility of the government to fight hunger in the garb of reduction of subsidy.”
The Modi government was trying to “kill” the purpose and intent as also “the soul and spirit” of the Food Security Act by reducing the number of eligible beneficiaries, he said. “This is the worst case of political opportunism, of concerted deception of the common man by the BJP and Prime Minister Modi.”
Even more shocking, he continued, was Mr. Shanta Kumar’s statement that “the BJP did not oppose the Food Security Bill of UPA in 2013 as it feared an adverse reaction during the parliamentary polls.”
