BJP MLA questions own govt’s claims in Guj

A day ahead of party meet, MLA writes to CM saying schemes not reaching poor

Irony continues to rediscover itself in Gujarat. Just when a Gujarat BJP Executive Committee meeting, underway in the lap of Sardar Patel’s statue in Kevadia, heaped praise on the State Government for effective governance, its own MLA wrote to Chief Minister Vijay Rupani that State schemes were not reaching the poorest of the poor.

Legislator Ketan Inamdar from Savli in Vadodara district, adjacent to Kevadia, has written a letter to the Chief Minister stating that “genuinely poor” people are being deprived of government schemes and sought a revision in the list of Below Poverty Line (BPL) category beneficiares.

His letter was dated September 1, 2021, and the threeday State Executive Committee meeting started the next day to conclude on Saturday, September 4.

Inamdar questioned the government’s claims of its welfare schemes reaching the last man. He writes, “Majority of those included in the government’s list of beneficiaries released after a BPL score survey do not need BPL benefits. As a result, many actual needy persons have been left out.”

The legislator, who had earlier kicked up a ruckus by resigning with complaints that no development work was moving in his constituency, cited instances of many who got allotments of housing scheme units under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, despite having “better standards of living”.

He stressed on the need to revise their list. He said the beneficiaries had been picked from the old list of BPL families. “As I understand, only those from the old BPL list, who do not have homes or who live in temporary homes should be included in the list on priority. But those who feature on the BPL list made in the past have different living standards now.”

Inamdar had won from Savli as an Independent in 2012 after being denied a BJP ticket and later was inducted in the party. He won again in 2017 on BJP ticket.