The Central government's affidavit in the Supreme Court declaring those spending Rs 32 per person per day and Rs 26 in rural areas as above poverty line has provoked politicians of all hues in poll-bound Punjab to demand a higher rate as deprivation in Punjab cannot be captured with these figures.
The ruling SAD patron and chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and chairman of the programme monitoring committee of the Congress Sunil Jakhar have termed the limit 'impractical for Punjab, which earlier had only 4.75 lakh BPL card holders.
The Congress spearheads Arvind Khanna and Sunil Jakhar said: "Amarinder Singh last week discussed with the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that for Punjab even those who have a brick and mortar house, but do not have a certain quality of life, are poor and the government must differentiate between the poor in Orissa and in Punjab."