Now, Digvijay calls Narendra Modi anti-poor

Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh on Tuesday took a potshots at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for writing a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and proposing a meeting of chief ministers be held on the issue of food security

Taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its poll panel head, Digvijay Singh tweeted, "BJP and its ICON wants to deprive Poor of Food Security in India shows its true colour of being ANTI-POOR. Oppose all pro-poor initiatives."

Singh also accused Modi of bypassing his own party leaders and taking the decision solely.

He further tweeted: "Modi doesn't trust the BJP Parliamentary Party to raise right issues on Food Security Bill, writes directly to PM. No confidence against Sushma?"

In his letter dated August 7, Modi charged that under the Food Security Ordinance, "unworkable statutory responsibilities have been given to central and state governments" and the "number of beneficiaries has been fixed without specifying eligibility criteria and fix individual entitlements. Between different states, there could be wide regional disparities".

The letter said the ordinance proposes to reduce the entitlement of BPL families from 35 kg per family to only 25 kg per average family of 5 persons and added "this cannot be the objective of any food security legislation which reduces the entitlement of those who have been identified as being below the poverty line".