Patna: Bihar Polls have become Daal pe Charcha with the prices of pulse skyrocketing. Both ruling and opposition partoes have blamed each other for the exorbitant price of Daal being sold in the state.
Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan blamed the state Government for the high prices of pulses, as it refused to purchase the imported Daal at Rs. 79/kg from the Center. Centre has imported 4,000 tonnes of daal.Paswan also alleged that when the Centre was planning to import dal, the Bihar government did not tell the Centre about its requirement. He also accused the State Government of not utilizing the Rs. 500 crore Price Stabilization fund.
State Agriculture Minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary however dismissed his claims. “Prices of pulses have skyrocketed across the country. True, the Centre offered us imported pulse but it was unprocessed and we don’t have the facility to process it in Bihar. If the Centre is genuinely concerned about people’s woes, it should have supplied processed daal,” Chaudhary said while talking to mediapersons.
Union Ministers Paswan and Radha Mohan Singh also announced that if voted to power, the NDA Government would bring down the daal prices by 50%.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar however counter-attacked the Center on this issue. “If that were true, dal should have been Rs 200 a kg only in Bihar. Why is it Rs 200 a kg in Gujarat, Maharashtra and MP?†he said at a rally in Nalanda. He said that the Centre was not serious about bringing down the prices of essential commodities.