TRS MPs plan privilege motion against Piyush Goyal on rice export claim

Hyderabad: The TRS MPs on Monday served notice on Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla to move a privilege motion against Union food minister Piyush Goyal for “deliberately misleading” the Parliament over the issue of export of boiled rice to other countries.

The notice was served by TRS MPs Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, Venkatesh Netha, Manne Srinivas Reddy, Nama Nageswara Rao, BB Patil and Kavitha Malothu. They said that, while answering a question on paddy procurement raised in Rajya Sabha on April 1, Piyush Goyal had said that India cannot export boiled rice under WTO restrictions and state governments must bear this in mind.

The MPs informed the speaker that Goyal's response was to a plea from them that the three lakh tonnes of parboiled rice lying with the states be exported to help the farmers.

“In his reply, Piyush Goyal made a wrong and misleading statement that the central government cannot export this under WTO regime,” the TRS MPs said.

"But, India was exporting millions of tonnes of parboiled rice to other countries as shown on the government’s website. This was tantamount to misleading the nation and hence we are raising the issue of privilege of the Parliament," the MPs said in the notice.