Mulayam meets PM over food ordinance

Says withdrawing support to UPA is 'irrelevant'

Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and expressed his reservations on the food security ordinance, promulgated by President Pranab Mukherjee.

The SP chief, who recently dubbed the ordinance “anti-farmer” opposing the centre’s move to implement it,  suggested to the prime minister to bring amendments in the Food Security Bill pending passage in Parliament.

“When we meet the Prime Minister, it is obvious that there would be some discussion,”  Yadav said when asked whether he discussed his party's stand on the food security ordinance with the prime minister.

Mulayam, however, refused to divulge any details on what he discussed during his 30-minute meeting with the prime minister.

“It was a regular meeting. I don’t have to discuss what I discussed with the media,” Yadav told reporters after the meeting.

The Samajwadi Party , which has given outside support to the UPA government, has expressed its serious reservations against the Food Security Bill. Seeking amendments to the proposed legislation, the party has made it clear that it will not allow passage of the bill in Parliament in its current form.

The Congress saw the SP chief’s meeting as a way forward. “It is one step forward, at least they want to discuss the food bill,” Congress spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury said when her reaction was sought over Yadav’s meeting.

When asked if his party had any plan to withdraw its support to the UPA, Yadav said “this issue” was irrelevant and his party had opposed several other initiatives of the Government in the past also.

Reacting to an Allahabad High Court ban on caste-based rallies, he said, “We welcome this judgment. The Samajwadi Party does not organise such rallies. We are not a caste-based party.”

Rajnath blasts  ordinance

At a time when the UPA government is putting its machinery together to exploit political benefits from the food security programme it rolled out through an ordinance, BJP president Rajnath Singh picked up what he claims are fundamental problems that would defeat the purpose of providing cheap foodgrain to more than half of the country’s population, reports DHNS.