The rice mill owners cried foul in East Burdwan after Leader of Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari posted a video on his X – handle and claimed that “Tonnes of rice meant to be distributed through the Public Distribution System were making their ways to the private mills and sold in the open market.”

Adhikari’s post claimed: “The PDS rice are re-milled (polished) and then sold in the open market and this illustrates how the multi-crore Ration Distribution scam is still going on despite the arrest of the former Food Minister and his aides.”

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The video was grabbed at a mill operating in Nandanpur village in Raina block in East Burdwan. Sougata Sahana, the mill owner, has strongly objected to Adhikari’s claims about pilferage and corruption. He said: “In no way the rice packets shown in the video were linked to the PDS. I’d procured the packets from the farmers and the private sellers for polishing.”