The Opposition Congress on Thursday criticised the Raman Singh Government for allegedly re-naming an insurance scheme after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The Government launched ‘Atal Farm labourers Insurance Scheme” on December 25, the birth day of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Under the scheme the Government will provide insurance cover to about 1.7 million farm labourers.
The State Congress spokesman Shailesh Nitin Trivedi said such a scheme was launched in 1994 and named after late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi when Digvijay Singh was the Chief Minister of undivided Madhya Pradesh. A farm labourer was getting an insurance cover of Rs 25,000 under that scheme and the premium was borne by both the State and the Central Government. The State Government stopped paying its own share after Raman Singh became the Chief Minister of the State, he said. In an attempt to take political mileage, the Government is now launching the same scheme re-naming it after Vajpayee, he said.
“We condemn the move”, he said. If former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would know that Chhattisgarh government has re-named a scheme after him, he would feel humiliated, he alleged. The Congress asks the Government to clarify, if Chief Minister Raman Singh re-named the scheme after taking approval of his cabinet.