A storm over cups of tea is all set to hit Devendra Fadnavis-led Maharashtra government.
Mumbai Congress president Sanjay Nirupam has alleged a scam in the amount spent on tea by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's office in Mantralaya.
Furnishing documents sourced under RTI, Nirupam charged the Devendra Fadnavis government with, what he termed, 'Tea Scam'. The document shows a steady increase in the amount of money being spent on consumption of tea in the Chief Minister's Office.
According to Nirupam, the amount spent on tea has risen from Rs 57,99,150 (nearly Rs 58 lakh) in 2015-16 to Rs 3,34,64,904 (nearly Rs 3.4 crore) in 2017-18 in just a couple of years. In the year 2016-17, over Rs 1.2 crore were spent on tea by the CMO. This means that, on an average, 18,591 cups of tea are served in CMO every day!
“What kind of tea is Devendra Fadnavis drinking? All these years we have heard of green tea, yellow tea and so on. But the CM seems to be drinking some kind of expensive golden tea. I can’t imagine that when farmers are dying in Maharashtra on a daily basis, there seems to be an unprecedented increase in the expense on tea," said Nirupam.
He added that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi takes great pride in saying that he was a ordinary 'chaiwala', Fadnavis's 'chai’ cannot be sold at an ordinary tea stall.
Both the prime minister and the Maharashtra chief minister are taking the country for a ride in the name of 'chai', he remarked.