New Delhi: A heated debate was witnessed in Lok Sabha today over the cancellation of mega Food Park in Amethi with Congress accusing the Narendra Modi government of resorting to "politics of vendetta" on developmental issues.
The issue which was first raised by Rahul in the House last week, was raked up again today with verbal exchanges between members of Congress and treasury benches after Leader of the Congress Mallikarjun Kharge referred to the food park scrapped by the NDA government.He alleged that NDA is not clearing projects of the erstwhile UPA regime by either cancelling or not proceeding ahead.
However, there is a new twist in the tale - a leading news channel made a major revelation today.
According to the channel's report, the project was scrapped by none other than Rahul Gandhi's own UPA government in 2013.
The documents accessed by the channel showed that the Amethi food park's corporate partner pulled out due to the erstwhile UPA government's decision of not letting it access natural gas from GAIL plant. The issue has seen the BJP and Congress trading jibes in the Lok Sabha.
Earlier, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had termed the scrapping of food park a 'politics of revenge'. He said the project would have given better prices to farmers. According to the Centre, the petroleum ministry under UPA in 2013 had refused to supply gas to the project.
Clarifying the reasons for cancellation of the project, Food Processing Minister Harshmit kaur in a statement on Tuesday said, “ the food park's promoter company had expressed its inability to pursue the project in the absence of natural gas, which was denied to it by the government in December 2012.
Kaur said, "in view of inordinate delay by the promoter company in meeting the "pre-conditions for final approval, in-principle approval accorded to the project by the ministry was cancelled".
