Rice Sets The Tone For Another Centre-State Battle

Backed by an enormous victory in the Karnataka election, the Congress has been aggressive in reasserting its ideological position in the state.

The ongoing tussle between the Congress government in Karnataka and the Centre over the release of rice for the state's much-publicised 'Anna Bhagya' scheme marks the beginning of what is likely to be a series of political and administrative confrontations between Bengaluru and New Delhi. 

Backed by an enormous victory in the Karnataka election, the Congress has been aggressive in reasserting its ideological position in the state, whether it is the decision to remove chapters on the RSS founder in school textbooks, introduced by the previous BJP government, or the decision to do away with the controversial anti-cow slaughter law.

While a political slugfest was expected and perhaps par for the course, the concern was how it would manifest itself in Centre-state relations in a way that could be debilitating at an administrative level.    

One of the key aspects of the Congress's campaign for the Karnataka election was the five welfare schemes, which included 10 kilograms of rice to families below the poverty line, or those poorest - the Centre already releases 5 kg of rice to BPL families under the State's Anna Bhagya scheme.