Twitter
Advertisement

Government mounts counter attack on Rahul Gandhi over Amethi food park

Rahul Gandhi's attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over cancellation of a mega food park project in his constituency has provoked a counter assault from the Centre, with Union Minister Smriti Irani accusing the Congress vice president of caring more for a business house than the farmers of Amethi.

Latest News
article-main
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

Rahul Gandhi's attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over cancellation of a mega food park project in his constituency has provoked a counter assault from the Centre, with Union Minister Smriti Irani accusing the Congress vice president of caring more for a business house than the farmers of Amethi.

The Union HRD Minister, who lost to Gandhi in the Lok Sabha elections from Amethi, chose the constituency to mount a counter offensive against the Congress leader, who has been aggressively attacking the "suit-boot ki sarkar" over issues ranging from the land bill to net neutrality since his return from leave.

"When Rahul Gandhi spoke for the first time in Amethi, he was talking for a business house. He did not speak for the farmers of Amethi.

"If you look at the documents of district officials, you will understand that from 2010 to 2014, the land was not provided by Congress. Whatever help had to be given for gas was not given for long," Irani told reporters amid the raging row over cancellation of the mega food park project.

Rahul Gandhi had last week slammed the Centre over the food park issue and accused Modi of pursuing "politics of revenge".

Irani, on a visit to Amethi to meet farmers hit by unseasonal rains and hailstorm, said that Rahul has been "missing" from his constituency and that the dreams shown by three generations of Congress can only be fulfilled by the Narendra Modi government.

With Rahul Gandhi showing rare aggression over the past few weeks in targeting the Modi government within and outside Parliament, Irani's Amethi visit is being seen as an attempt by the ruling dispensation to make things difficult for the Congress leader in his own bastion.

"The MP of Amethi has been missing from here. I am glad, at least, to follow my footsteps, the people of Amethi will get to see him," she said, when asked if she had timed her visit to Amethi ahead of the one planned by Rahul.

Even as Irani took potshots at Rahul in his pocket borough, the government also sought to blunt his attack against the Modi government on the food park issue inside Parliament, laying the blame for cancellation of the project at the door of the promoter company and the previous Congress-led UPA government.

In a detailed statement, read out in the Lok Sabha amid din created by Congress members, Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur said the food park's promoter company had expressed its inability to pursue the project in the absence of natural gas, which was denied to it by the government in December 2012.

Kaur said, in view of inordinate delay by the promoter company in meeting the "pre-conditions for final approval, in-principle approval accorded to the project by the Ministry was cancelled".

She said that during a review meeting of the project's progress in June last year, the promoter company's representative had informed that without supply of gas at administered price, it would not "consider the project to be viable".

"In the absence of availability of gas at the administered price the promoter company expressed its inability to pursue the project," the Minister said.

Kaur said the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas had in December 2012 expressed inability to allocate domestic gas for the food park due to acute shortage and lowest priority accorded to captive power plants for such allocation.

Supply of imported LNG through GAIL for meeting the requirement of captive power plant could be feasible and the same was communicated by the Ministry to the promoter company, she noted.

"However, the promoter company vide their letter dated January 16, 2013 informed the Ministry that using imported LNG for captive power generation would be totally uneconomical and would therefore make the project financially unviable.

"The promoter company also conveyed that they cannot go ahead without domestic natural gas being allotted to them for captive power plant at the administered price," she said in the statement. 

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement