On Wednesday, Trinamool Congress leader Yashwant Sinha took to Twitter to make a bizarre claim stating that he had received information that Adani Group is directly favouring the BJP in the Uttar Pradesh elections.
The TMC leader claimed that the BJP was allowing the company to distribute free “1 kilo” of the company’s Fortune cooking oil in addition to the free food that the central govt is distributing.
The former Finance Minister Yashwant Singh went on to ask whether the ongoing elections were free and fair at all.
For an average follower, the TMC leader’s tweet looks just another routine political tweet made against the BJP government. However, this particular tweet is beyond a political tweet, as it contains layers of misinformation attached to it.
There is no proof whatsoever to suggest that Adani Group themselves have been distributing its flagship oil brand Fortune cooking oil to the people of Uttar Pradesh ahead of the assembly elections. In addition, the former Finance Minister fails to realise that all the packed oil packets of Fortune cooking oil come in the unit of litres and not in the kilogram.
Cooking oil part of National Food Security Act, govt procures it from NAFED
In reality, the Uttar Pradesh government is already providing one litre of refined oil, one kilogram of chickpeas, and a packet of salt to all the ration cardholders in the state. This is provided along with wheat and rice that is provided under the National Food Security Act.
Reportedly, the distribution of free oil was announced in December of the last year, much ahead of the polls. The oil and chickpeas are being from the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India. The chana or chickpeas has been procured from Kanpur, while the refined oil has been sourced from Bharatpur in Rajasthan.
The government has procured from a central agency, and there is no proof that the oil has been procured from one private entity – Adani Wilmar, which produces the Fortune cooking oil. In addition, there is also no proof that Adani Group has supplied the free oil packets to the people of Uttar Pradesh.
Most importantly, the free salt, oil and chickpea packets come in a pack with the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on it. The government may have procured the Fortune oil packets due to the short supply of oil procured by NAFED.
However, one cannot say that the BJP allowed Adani to supply free oil to the public. Moreover, Fortune is a huge brand and is popular among consumers, even if some people get packets of the oil, a former finance minister claiming that packets of cooking oil from a particular brand indicate some sort of collusion between a company and a political party is not just unfortunate but is profoundly stupid.
It is like refusing to drive on a road because it was built by L and T saying the person does not like the company or saying ‘do not use mobile phones’ because Jio provides the connection.
There is no proof for the claims made by Yashwant Sinha that either Adani Group or the government is distributing Fortune cooking to the voters of Uttar Pradesh during the ongoing state assembly elections.
It seems like TMC leader Yashwant Sinha has objections about distributing free food packets to poor people. The tweet suggests that the former Finance Minister is not happy with the centre distributing food grains and rations to the poor of the country, who have struggled to find livelihood opportunities due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
