CM Siddaramaiah's clarification on BPL card, said- ration cards of ineligible people will be canceled

Bengaluru: A large number of BPL cards are being canceled in Karnataka. Due to which an uproar has started. Now Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has given clarification in this matter.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday clarified while defending the Karnataka government's move to cancel ration cards. He said only government employees and income tax payers are being taken out of the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list and not the eligible poor beneficiaries.

Siddaramaiah, speaking to reporters, said the cancellation is in line with the National Food Security Act, which explicitly bars government employees and income tax payers from obtaining BPL ration cards. He accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of raising a politically motivated issue despite fundamentally opposing the food security law. The Chief Minister said that the rights of eligible ration card holders will be completely protected.

He rejected opposition claims that the move was linked to a lack of funds to implement election promises. The controversy has arisen from a recent survey by the Karnataka government, which found 22.63 lakh BPL card holders to be ineligible. This move has triggered a political tussle between the ruling Congress and the BJP.

Union Food Minister Pralhad Joshi alleged that canceling the cards was a strategy to avoid implementing the state's Griha Lakshmi scheme. Siddaramaiah hit back, saying the food security law was introduced in 2013 during the Manmohan Singh government to protect the interests of poor citizens. He was in the national capital for the launch of Karnataka Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Limited's Nandini brand in Delhi. He also met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on the issue of agricultural loans.

Let us tell you that the Karnataka government is currently going through controversies. One dispute does not end as another one begins. Earlier, due to administrative negligence, the land of farmers in Vijayanagar district was declared as Waqf Board land. Due to which there was a lot of uproar.