Describing the Food Security Ordinance a poll gimmick Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav said it was introduced by the Congress-led UPA with an eye on the forthcoming lok Sabha election so that it can lure the poor people.
''It is the Congress tradition to adopt such methods. It hadalways taken such steps before the elections in the past and this time too, apprehending defeat, party has adopted this please-people method," Yadav told reporters here on Friday. Yadav said that his party was against the food security bill as it will not allow farmers to get good remunerative price of their produce.
''In the all party meeting we had opposed the Bill. At that time some Union Ministers had even supported us. But we don't know why the government is in a hurry to go for an ordinance when the monsoon session of the Parliament is on the anvil,'' he said. Hitting out at the Congress he said the Union Government has no intention to provide cheap food grains of people. "It is an open secret that lakh of tones of food grains gets destroyed every year because of lack of storage capacity, still the Government has refused to distribute food grains free to poor.
"The Supreme Court had asked Government to distribute grains free rather than allowing it to rot still UPA did not listen to the court. More than 5 lakh people died due to starvation and now Government is doing drama over Food Security Bill, he said. ''Congress always brings new legislation before elections. Earlier it was MGNREGA and loan waiver Bills and now UPA has brought Food Security Bill,'' he said.
The SP supremo made it clear that the party would fight till the end to ensure the rights of the farmers in the Food security Bill. ''We could even go to the extent of derailing the Food Security Bill like we did in the Reservation in Promotion Bill,'' he warned. Ruling out efforts to form the third front before the lok Sabha elections, the SP chief said it was now certain that neither BJP nor Congress would get majority. Hence smaller and regional parties will have their say, he said.
"The Third Front will come in existence after the elections," he declared.The former UP CM also denied that SP was a partner of the UPA-II government and said that the party had always stood against the government in almost all the anti-people issues. '' We have been ditched in the nuclear Bill as the Congress failed to implement the promises to generate power through atomic plants. Now we are pushing ahead very cautiously and had supported the UPA-II only to prevent the communal forces from coming to power,'' he said.