Congress leaders arrive at Lalbagh police station in Cuttack for their FIR campaign against the state government. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Bhubaneswar, July 11: The Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) today launched its FIR drive against chief minister Naveen Patnaik and the government for giving people 10kg less rice than the centrally allocated quota of 35kg a month.

The state gives 25kg of rice to each BPL family. The state government says that it gets rice for 27 lakh families but has to distribute it among 41 lakh BPL families.

To counter the FIR campaign, the BJD today announced that it would rake up the special category state issue once again by organising strikes and demonstration at the panchayat and block level across the state ahead of the municipality election.

It will also train at least five members of each panchayat on the various state government welfare programmes and organise training programmes on central negligence.

PCC president Jaydev Jena said: “Earlier, people were afraid of lodging an FIR against the chief minister. Now, they have come voluntarily to lodge a complaint against the chief minister for reducing the rice quota from 35kg to 25kg. The programme will continue till July 17. We are expecting around one lakh FIRs to be lodged against the government during this campaign.”

Jena along with his supporters lodged the FIR at Lalbag police station in Cuttack. “The government should return the 10kg of rice to the BPL families,” he said.

Calling the allegation baseless, chief minister Naveen Patanik said: “Our government delivers 25kg of rice at Re 1 per kg to the BPL families. It is a false propaganda on part of the Congress.”

On the other hand, the BJD today announced a programme demanding special category state status once again to put the Congress on the back foot.

The BJD’s core committee, made up of district observers and vice-presidents, met at Naveen Nivas, the chief minister’s official residence, and to chalk out a plan on the coming civic poll.