Scrapping Amethi food park is revenge: Rahul Gandhi to Rajnath Singh

NEW DELHI: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has said the letter written by food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, giving reasons for cancelling the food park project in Amethi "has confirmed" his suspicion that "politics of revenge" was behind the action. He also accused Badal of rushing to cancel the project despite the fact "neither land nor gas was impediments to approval of the food park project."

In his May 14 reply to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who had forwarded Badal’s explanatory letter, Gandhi said, "I am deeply dismayed to read the reasons and chronology of events contained in Badal’s letter. The contents of Badal’s letter confirm in writing what I had suspected all along — that cancellation of the mega food park was on account of politics of revenge aimed at punishing the farmers of UP, particularly Amethi."

Gandhi said, the chronology of events by Badal showed two things: "UPSIDC approved the said transfer on 23, June 2012" and "Point 15: "getting gas supply at concessional rate from Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is not the precondition for final approval."