Urea crisis: Cong demands CM's resignation

Bhopal, Dec 30 (UNI) Squarely blaming the Madhya Pradesh government for a urea crisis, leader of the Opposition Jamuna Devi today demanded the resignations of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Agriculture Minister Chaudhary Chandrabhan Singh.

''Farmers are facing a fertiliser crisis as the regime failed to make a timely assessment of the urea demand and also did not ensure that a distribution system was put in place,'' the Congress tribal leader told reporters here.

Claiming that the Centre had supplied adequate urea to the state, Ms Devi alleged that Mr Chouhan was levelling baseless accusations to sully the Centre's image.

''Such propaganda was not expected of him. In fact, Union Chemicals and Fertiliser Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has made it clear that fertiliser was supplied adequately and in time but the state failed to complete lifting the allotted fertiliser,'' she added.

Accusing the government of being hand-in-glove with private traders and encouraging commission-mongering, Ms Devi questioned the sale of chemical fertliser and said it was not subjected to any official restriction.

''The modification in the state's fertiliser distribution policy, coupled with corruption, gave birth to the crisis,'' the Congress leader added.

UNI AG-AC SSC HT1635