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After beef and quota controversies, the issue of escalating pulse prices has taken centre stage in campaigning for the Bihar assembly election. While Union ministers Ram Vilas Paswan and

Radha Mohan Singh have offered to bring down pulse prices by 50% within two days after NDA comes to power in the state, the Nitish Kumar government says the Centre is not serious about

bringing down the prices of essential commodities. Paswan and Singh on Tuesday blamed the Nitish government for rise in prices of essential commodities, including daal. They promised to

provide arahar at Rs 100/kg against the prevailing rate of Rs 200/kg within two days of NDA coming to power in Bihar. "The Bihar government is playing politics. It is intentionally not

checking the hoarding and black marketing of such items. It is also not taking imported daal from the Centre because Nitish wants it to become a poll issue against the NDA," said Paswan

flanked by Singh and other BJP functionaries. Paswan and Singh claimed the Centre has been writing to the Bihar government since May on the issue, but the state has not responded. "A

Bihar government secretary sent a letter to the Centre on Monday, but that was on the stabilization of prices of onion, not daal," Singh said. "People should ask Nitish why his

government is not taking imported daal available at just Rs 79/kg and sell it through retail outlets as is being done by other states, including West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and

Maharashtra," Paswan said, adding the Centre has imported 4,000 tonnes of daal and Andhra Pradesh alone has taken 1,800 tonnes. Singh also blamed Nitish for not taking benefits of the

Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF). "The Centre has a scheme with a corpus of Rs 500 crore to support market interventions to control prices of perishable agri-horticultural commodities.

The PSF can be used to grant interest-free loan to the state governments and central agencies to support their working capital and other expenses on procurement and distribution of essential

commodities," he said. Countering the Centre's claim, however, Bihar agriculture minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary said the Union ministers are trying to mislead people. "Prices

of pulses have skyrocketed across the country. True, the Centre offered us imported pulse but it was unprocessed and we don't have the facility to process it in Bihar. If the Centre is

genuinely concerned about people's woes, it should have supplied processed daal," Chaudhary said, adding this is why most of the states declined to take the imported pulse which

is lying unused at the Chennai port.  Chaudhary also berated the Centre for ignoring the state request to open retail outlets in Bihar on the pattern of those in Delhi. "Paswan is

blackmailing voters by claiming to bring down arahar price by 50% if NDA is voted to power in the state," he said.