UPA's food security scheme will snatch food away from poor people: Modi

Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today accused the Congress-led UPA government of playing "vote bank politics" over food security."Instead of providing food to the poor, the Congress government is playing vote bank politics by establishing different standards for different states to decide beneficiaries of the food security scheme," he said in his address to Gujarat Co-operative Congress here."For its favourite states, the government has set different procedures to fix slabs of beneficiaries of the food security scheme, while for states where Opposition parties are in power, it has different standards," he alleged.[caption id="attachment_997919" align="alignleft" width="380"] Narendra Modi. Reuters[/caption]"The UPA government's food security scheme is not for providing food to the poor, but aimed at snatching away food from poor people. How can the central government decide the number of beneficiaries of the food security scheme in Opposition-ruled states," he asked."In the name of providing food security to the poor, the UPA government aims to reap political benefit," he said. However, refuting Modi's allegations, Gujarat Congress dubbed these as total "lies"."The central government has asked all state governments to submit survey of BPL (below poverty line) and APL (above poverty line) population, but the Gujarat government submitted it after eight months' delay and thousands of actual beneficiaries were omitted," Gujarat's Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said."In fact, it's the Gujarat BJP government which has snatched food away from the poor and given it to industrialists," he alleged.Doshi claimed that 55 per cent of women and 45 per cent of children in Gujarat, who are malnourished would directly benefit from the food security scheme.PTI