By IANS,
Bhopal : The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh Tuesday resolved to take on the United Progressive Alliance-led (UPA) central government for its failure to check price-rise and alleged discrimination with the state.
At the two-day state party executive meet that started here Tuesday, BJP leaders said the UPA government came to power on the promise of working for the cause of the common man but pursued faulty policies and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is to be held directly responsible for it.
“The meeting resolved that on the one hand the common man was suffering due to the anti-poor policies of the central government, and on the other hand the central government was discriminating against the non-Congress ruled states,” BJP general secretary Bhupendra Singh told newspersons.
Singh said the UPA government is discriminating against Madhya Pradesh in allocation of food grain for the public distribution system (PDS), coal for power plants, and provision of funds for exigencies like drought.
The BJP’s state executive warned the UPA government against discriminating against the state or they would launch an agitation. “The detailed strategy for the agitational programme would soon be chalked out,” Singh told reporters.
He said the BJP state executive members charged the union government with playing truant with the state, with an eye to elections later this year. He said despite rise in the number of below-poverty line families in the state, the central government has not raised the quota of food grain for them.
They said the central government also reduced the quota of coal for various thermal power stations so that the state government could be defamed for being unable to meet the electricity demand.
“The central government reduced eastern region’s unallocated power quota of the state from 350 MW to 31 MW and has taken no initiative towards early completion of the power projects,” an executive member said.
The executive alleged that another example of step-motherly treatment of the state in this election year was non-provision of drought relief despite several requests of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
The executive members said a demand has been made for instant relief of Rs.15 billion for the drought affected Bundelkhand region.