The Delhi BJP unit accused the Arvind Kejriwal government on Thursday of not making any demand for supply of onion from the Centre, and claimed that the ruling AAP was trying to politically exploit the high prices of the kitchen staple in the upcoming Assembly polls.
The AAP government cancelled an order of four truckloads of daily onion supply in the first week of October, Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta tweeted in hindi and attached with it a purported letter of Delhi State Civil Supply Cooperation Limited in support of his claim.
With soaring onion prices leaving people in tears and the Delhi Assembly polls just round the corner, the ruling AAP and the opposition BJP were indulged in an ever-intensifying blamegame.
The AAP government's Food and Civil Supplies Minister Imran Hussain wrote a letter to Union Consumer Affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan alleging that the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) has stopped supply of onions to Delhi.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal too on Wednesday accused the central government of stopping the supply of onions at controlled price to Delhi.
Claiming that Centre provided onion to the Delhi government from its stock of 56000 metric tonnes at the rate of Rs 15.90 per kg, Gupta said, "However, with eye on the Assembly polls, Chief Minister Kejriwal and his party spent crores of rupees on advertisements telling people that they will provide them onion at subsidised rates."
"However, they cancelled the order for onion supply on October 4," he claimed.
Party MP and former Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel accused Kejriwal of "misleading" people.
"As always, Kejriwal is again misleading the people of Delhi by claiming that that the Centre has stopped the supply of onions. The truth is that Delhi government itself had written a letter to NAFED stating that it does not require onion supply anymore. Even now, Delhi government is not ready to buy onion from the Central government," he said.
The Centre had written a letter to the Delhi government on November 23, asking how much onion do they need. Other states have raised request of onion to meet their demand, but the Kejriwal government did not demand anything, he claimed.
The price of onion in the national capital has again increased from Rs 40-Rs 50 per kg to nearly Rs 100 a kg over the past few days.
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