Congress possibly seeing ordinance on food bill as gamechanger: BJP

NEW DELHI: With Union Cabinet likely to consider the issue of ordinance on the ambitious food bill, BJP today spoke of the possibility of Congress toying with the idea of early Lok Sabha elections.

"There is more to it than meets the eye and Congress may be thinking of early elections and could be seeing the ordinance as a gamechanger," BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar told PTI.

He prefaced his statement by wondering as to "why there is sudden rush for ordinance on the Food Security Bill when all parties have agreed to it in principle and in fact have given good amendments".

The BJP spokesman alleged that by going for an ordinance, Congress was playing "petty politics to get exclusive credit" in the elections ahead. He said such politics has never paid dividends electorally.

Wondering as to why Congress was running away from debate, he alleged that the government wasted nine years and "did not bring the bill and have now suddenly become hyper-active".

Besides, he said that eight states have much better law than the proposed food security bill and the Chhattisgarh Act is "more comprehensive, gives more coverage and charges less price and gives additional nutritional supplement also".

The Food Security Bill, a pet project of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, was tabled in the Budget session of Parliament but could not be taken up for discussion due to pandemonium in the Lok Sabha over various scams. However, government is keen on issuing an ordinance for early implementation of the bill.