Nirmala Sitharaman, who was in Telangana as a part of BJPs Pravas Yojana Programme inspected a ration shop in Kamareddy district and took offence as the shop did not have a picture of Narendra Modi.

news Politics Saturday, September 03, 2022 - 18:15
Balakrishna Ganeshan

The attitude of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, summoning a District Collector and questioning him about why the Telangana state has been objecting to keeping a photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Public Distribution System (PDS) or ration shops, has drawn wide flak.  

On Friday, the Union Minister who was partaking in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s parliament Pravas Yojana programme in Telangana, inspected a ration shop in Kamareddy district. Taking offence to the fact that the shop did not have a photo or a flexi featuring Narendra Modi – who according to her is a ‘great’ leader– the Minister asked District Collector Jitesh Patel to give details of the state’s contribution in providing rice.

Pointing out that the Union government is providing the maximum subsidy of almost Rs 30 per kg of rice, she questioned: “When we [Union government] are sending everything for free, without any expense for the state, without transport cost, then why do you object to keeping the photo of such a great leader?”  

The attitude of the Union Minister who publicly humiliated the District Collector for not knowing the Union government’s monetary contribution in the ration being provided to the economically weaker groups has been condemned by retired IAS officers.

Watch the video of Nirmala Sitharaman here : 

Speaking to The News Minute, retired IAS officer Akunuri Murali said,  “This is nothing but arrogance.  Just because he is an IAS officer, he is not expected to know everything. A collector is not an encyclopaedia or a robot to give accurate answers with a tap of a button.”

He said that no officer would know all the clauses, which is the reason why there are other officials working under them. 

Murali further said, “Since she is a Finance Minister, does that mean that she knows everything about finance? It is pure arrogance. How can she grill an IAS officer like that?”

He said that the Minister should have conducted herself better and behaved like a human being first. “What is this nonsense of publicly shaming him by asking him random questions in some quiz style? What kind of message is she sending by publicly shaming an IAS officer?”

Another retired IAS officer MG Devasahayam, questioning the rationale behind featuring PM Modi’s photo in ration shops said, “Ration shops are creations of the state governments. All that the Union government has done is, curtail the sources of revenue of the state by bringing in Goods and Services Tax.”  

“Both Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREG) Scheme and food security ration shops are state projects created by the people and created for people. But having centralised all the money through GST they are directly allocating the money and are demanding a photo of Modi.”

Devasahayam said that going by the Union Minister’s logic of putting a photo for who is paying more, he said, “South India contributes more in revenue to the Government of India than North Indian states, so can we have photos of south Indian leaders?”  Terming the behaviour of Nirmala Sitharaman as “arrogant”, he asked her to withdraw her remarks.

Reacting to the incident, TRS working president and Minister of Urban Development, KT Rama Rao, in a tweet said, “Since our FM is going around lecturing on how “Modi Sarkar” is the giver. Here are the facts & figures. For every Rupee that Telangana contributes to the Nation, we only get back 46 paisa! Madam, time to put up a banner : “Thanks to Telangana” in all BJP states’ at PDS shops.” Along with the tweet KTR has also shared a picture containing a table of tax collected by the Union government from Telangana. The TRS party also shared an old video of Narendra Modi asking the previous UPA government if they were funding the welfare schemes by spending money from their own pockets.

Telangana’s Finance Minister T Harish Rao too sharply reacted against the remarks made by the Union Finance Minister. ​Rao said that the Union government’s share in the distribution of rice to the poor was just 55% while the rest was borne by the state government.

Not just leaders from Telangana, other regional parties too questioned the supremacy of the Union government. 

Salem Dharanidharan, a political strategist associated with the DMK party said, Among big states, people of Tamil Nadu pay highest per capita tax to the Union government. We get only 30% of what we give. So as per @nsitharaman s logic - our leader @mkstalin s photo should be in every ration shop of UP. It’s our money which helps union govt schemes in UP.”

Nirmala Sitharaman while answering a question in a press meet about her interaction with collector, said the language she used was not objectionable or unparliamentary. “As a people’s representative, I have the right to ask a question to an administrator,” she said. Sitharaman said since the officer was unable to answer the question, she even went to the extent of giving him half an hour more. “After that, if somebody, whoever may be, minister or MP or MLA, whoever be, if they think that wasn't right, they can have their opinion. But I think I have not crossed any limit,” said the Union minister.

Read: FM Nirmala seen yelling at Collector over 'missing' PM photo at Telangana ration shop
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