Give up one nation, one ration card scheme at once, MK Stalin urges Centre
Chennai: Deploring the Centre’s moves to encroach into the powers of the States through one proposal after another since the new BJP government took office, the DMK president M K Stalin on Sunday urged the Centre to drop the’one nation, one ration card’scheme and the move to recruit even district magistrates by a separate national commission.
These moves coming at a time when the States and legal experts were already opposing the Centre’s idea of’one nation, one poll’, were like “pouring more ghee into the fire” and cut at the very roots of the federal structure, Mr. Stalin said in a statement here. Such’regressive’steps being hastened by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government was against the Constitution, he stressed.
Condemning the Union Food minister Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan’s announcement of bringing an integrated, pan-Indian administration for the Public Distribution System (PDS), basically a state subject, through the proposed’one nation, one ration card’scheme, Stalin said for the Centre to usurp the powers of the State in this field and to take over even distribution of essential articles like rice and pulses in villages, amounted to “belittling” Centre-State relations.
“The PDS is a basic right of the States and any attempt to tamper with it will be akin to throwing stones at a beehive,” Stalin warned, expressing shock that a leader like Ramvilas Paswan could make such a statement. For the Food minister and the BJP government to even set a deadline for switch over to the’one nation, one ration card’scheme was the climax of authoritarian administration, the DMK leader said and demanded that the Centre drop this scheme
immediately.
Similarly, Stalin said the Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s move for the Centre to recruit even Magistrates and District Judges, which is purely under the
administrative purview of the respective High courts in the States, through a national commission was totally unacceptable to the DMK. The Centre’s bid to assume all powers of the States to itself was condemnable, Stalin added.
