Waiver to skip Aadhaar Card

Hyderabad: Less than a day after announcing that AP will link Aadhaar card to farm loan waiver, agriculture minister P. Pulla Rao backtracked on Thursday stating Aadhaar will not be linked to the sop.

The hurried withdrawal comes after the minister and the TD came under sharp criticism, especially from the Opposition YSRC who accused the party of diluting its poll promise of extending an unconditional farm loan waiver.

It may be mentioned that the Supreme Court had delinked Aadhaar from all government schemes and as such the AP government’s proposal would not stand legal scrutiny. Sources in the TD said Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu took up the issue seriously as “Aadhaar-link” issue was projecting the TD government in poor light and had given an opportunity to the YSRC to blame the TD.

Minister Pulla Rao took pains to explain to the media that he had mentioned about Aaadhaar-linkage only in connection with weeding out bogus claims.