By IANS,
Bhopal : Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan Wednesday afternoon sat on a 24-hour fast at the state capital’s main Roshanpura crossing to protest against the central government’s alleged discriminatory attitude.
Chouhan was joined by several state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and hundreds of workers in the protest against alleged discrimination in the allotment of foodgrain, coal for thermal power plants and provision of drought relief package for the Bundelkhand region.
While Chouhan is observing fast in the state capital, state BJP president Narendra Singh Tomar has followed suit at Sidhi district headquarters and other BJP leaders at the various district headquarters all over the state.
Charging the union government with playing truant with the state with an eye to elections later this year, Chouhan told newspersons that despite a rise in the number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in the state – from 4.1 million to 6.2 million, the central government has not raised the quota of foodgrain for BPL families. The availability of food grains to BPL families is about 20 kg per family per month instead of 35 kg as stipulated by the Supreme Court, he said.
He said the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government reduced the quota of coal for various thermal power stations. While 661,000 tonne quota of coal for Sarni Thermal Power plant has been reduced to 575,000 tonnes, quota for Birsinghpur power plant has been reduced from 680,000 tonnes to 570,000 tonnes and of Amarkantak Thermal power plant from 190,000 tonnes to 120,000 tonnes, he informed.
“Besides, 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 which are being delayed for want of supply of equipments by the Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL),” said Chouhan.
Chouhan said another example of the step-motherly treatment with the state in this election year was non-provision of drought relief despite several requests in person and through various letters.
“I have been demanding Rs.1500 crore (Rs.15 billion) for instant relief to the drought affected Bundelkhand region and Rs. 24,244 crore package for long term projects to provide relief to the region for more than six months but nothing has been done so far,” he claimed.
The other leaders observing a similar fast at different district headquarters include Raghavji Bhai, Babulal Gaur, Laxmikant Sharma, Kamal Patel, Narottam Mishra, Himmat Kothari, Gopal Bhargawa, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Anoop Mishra, Rustam Singh, Ajay Vishnoi, Karan Singh Verma, Ranjana Baghel, Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya, Arvind Bhadoria, Archana Chitnis, Vipin Dixit, Vijendra Singh Sisodia, Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat, Sudha Malaiya and Bhupendra Singh.