Urea shortfall: BJP kickstarts protests, Chaluvarayaswamy hits back

Bengaluru: The political blame game between the Congress and the BJP over the urea shortfall has intensified with BJP kickstarting a statewide protest even as Agriculture Minister N Chaluvarayaswamy hit back at the saffron party for “playing politicis” on the issue.

Speaking to reporters, Chaluvarayaswamy said: “I have spoken to all deputy commissioners. The BJP doesn’t have the courage to approach the Union government and discuss the state’s problems. Two weeks ago I wrote to the MPs from Karnataka. We have asked for 1.5 lakh metric tonnes of urea. Both me and the CM wrote to the union minister. What else Vijayendra and Ashoka want us to do?”

Explaining that the supply of urea fertilisers was purely the Union government’s domain, the minister said: “We didn’t want to politicise this but since they are initiating it, we have no option but to...”

However, BJP MLC and chief whip of the opposition in the Legislative Council N Ravikumar slammed the government, saying: “Urea is necessary for a lot of crops but the government is not able to supply it. In the absence of urea fertilisers, they must have released funds for procuring sprayers but they haven’t done it.”

He claimed that the Union government had allocated 8.73 metric tonnes of urea fertiliser to the state as against the requirement of 6.30 lakh metric tonnes. “Where are the remaining 2.43 lakh metric tonnes of urea fertilisers? Siddaramaiah and Chaluvarayaswamy have to answer this. If they write letters to the Union government for everything, why is this government even there?”

On Sunday, BJP state president B Y Vijayendra made the same accusation against the government. Reacting to this, Chaluvarayaswamy said: “Does Vijayendra have any sense? He doesn’t know the difference between buffer and old balance. He doesn’t have experience. Of the 8.73 lakh MT, only 5 lakh MT has come. The remaining figure is the old stock.”