Siddaramaiah asked the Prime Minister what was his role in this.
Bengaluru:
Continuing his attack against the ruling BJP after Amul announced its plan to sell milk and curd in a Bengaluru market, senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Sunday tweeted to ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was visiting, was the purpose of his visit “to loot the kingdom”.
Alleging that the state’s milk production has taken a hit since the day Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah spoke about the possibility of merging Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) with Amul, the former chief minister put out a series of tweets. I asked the Prime Minister what role he had in this.
Amul’s move is seen by many, especially the opposition party KMF, as a threat to its famous dairy brand ‘Nandini’. They also see it as an attempt to crush KMF, amid the story of its merger with Amul.
“Is your purpose of coming to Karnataka to give to Karnataka or to loot from Karnataka? You have already stolen banks, ports and airports from Kannadigas. Are you now trying to steal Nandini (KMF) from us?” Mr. Siddaramaiah asked.
“It was Gujarat’s Baroda Bank which absorbed our Vijaya Bank. Ports and airports were handed over to Gujarat’s Adani. Now, Gujarat’s Amul is planning to eat our KMF (Nandini). Shri Narendra Modi , Are we the enemy of Gujaratis?” Instead of giving 2 crore jobs a year to the youth, Narendra Modi took away the jobs of Kannada people from our banks, ports and airports, he added, “Now Karnataka BJP wants to harm the prospects of our farmers by giving KMF to Amul ” PM Modi was in Mysore and Chamarajanagar districts to attend an event to mark the completion of 50 years of ‘Project Tiger’.
Siddaramaiah carried out these attacks despite Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai giving a clarification in this regard on Saturday. Describing ‘Nandini’ as the pride of Karnataka, and adding that his government has taken all measures to make it number one nationally, Mr. Bommai said, “The market reach of Nandini is wide, Amul has nothing to fear.” There’s no need.” He had said that the Congress is politicizing everything which is not in the interest of the state. “We are also going to other states and marketing…. We will do everything possible to keep Amul behind the competition.” State Cooperation Minister ST Somashekar on Sunday reiterated that there is no proposal to merge KMF with Amul.
“If Amul sells milk online at Rs 57 per litre, we sell it at Rs 39. We are shipping our products to Tamil Nadu and other states,” he said, adding that eradicating the Nandini brand was impossible.
State BJP general secretary CN Ashwathnarayan criticized former chief minister Siddaramaiah of the Congress and HD Kumaraswamy of the JDS for making “irresponsible statements” on the issue.
Clarifying that Amul was trying to engage in unnecessary competition with KMF and was planning to trample Nandini day in and day out, Mr. Competition is in no one’s interest. KMF buys milk directly from farmers through cooperatives in thousands of villages in the state.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)