The high-stakes Assam Assembly elections are just three months away and both the BJP, which rules at the Centre, as well as the Congress, which has been in power in the state for 15 long years, seem to be using the Food Security Act (FSA) as a political tool to gain early advantages.
The FSA, which has been implemented by the Congress-led Assam government as recently as in December, is at the centre of political gamesmanship between the two parties. Under the provisions of the Act, every member of a rural household will receive 5 kg rice every month at Rs 3 per kg.
Prior to the implementation of the FSA, the Assam government was giving a consolidated 35 kg rice to every rural poor family.
Sources aware of the development said that the Assam government has been giving out a message to the people that by implementing the central government Act, it is only able to provide a curtailed supply of rice to rural poor. As per FSA provisions, even if a five-member family receives 5 kg rice individually, it would come to only 25 kg, whereas earlier the state was doling out 35 kg of rice to each family. While this seems to be the Assam government’s tactic, in an interesting development, Union food minister Ram Vilas Paswan is reported to have received a “request” from the Assam BJP unit to allow distribution of 35 kg of rice to each rural poor family in the state, something which the food minister is reported to have showed his inability to implement.
According to sources, Union sports minister Sarbanand Sonowal (who has been made BJP president in Assam) as well as petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan are said to have held parleys with Mr Paswan, where possibilities were reportedly explored to see as to how the pre-FSA arrangement could be implemented in Assam. A move which seemed clearly motivated by the forthcoming Assembly elections.
The food minister, sources said, is reported to have conveyed to the duo that this could not be done since the FSA has now come into effect and a central act cannot reversed.
Mr Pradhan’s presence in the meeting between Mr Paswan and Mr Sonowal, however, seemed interesting, considering the fact that the petroleum minister, who was co-incharge of Bihar Assembly polls for the BJP along with Union minister Ananth Kumar, faced a major political setback after the saffron party lost there.
Meanwhile, Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi, while announcing the implementation of the FSA in the state earlier in December, blamed the Centre by saying that despite lesser allocation of rice under the legislation, the state still wanted to introduce the legislation in July 2014 itself, but could not do so as the NDA government delayed the process by introducing a mandatory clause of making all data computerised. Incidentally, the FSA was introduced by the erstwhile Congress-led UPA Government in 2013.
