New Delhi: The Election Commission has asked not to distribute 95 lakh sarees by the Telangana’s K Chandrashekar Rao government after a spate of complaints against the scheme. The poll body’s decision comes just a day after it okayed a request from the state government to distribute sarees to the state’s poor women on the occasion of Bathukamma, a Telangana folk festival celebrated during the Dasara Navratri celebrations.

Election Commission officials had then pointed out that the plan to distribute sarees under an existing scheme did not violate the poll body’s election code of conduct.

The model code of conduct will not apply to government schemes and programmes announced before September 6 when the state assembly was dissolved, said state chief electoral officer Rajath Kumar.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government had come up with the scheme in September 2017 to gain the support of over 20,000 weavers and endear itself to the state’s poorest families.

Around 96 lakh women living below poverty line (BPL) were given free sarees as gifts for the Bathukamma festival, and the scheme is estimated to have cost Rs 220 crore then.

However, women in many places said the sarees were of poor quality and the government was humiliating them. Some women burnt sarees or rejected them at distribution centres.

The TRS government this year placed orders with weavers well in advance to make quality sarees, each of which will cost Rs 290. It also made a budgetary allocation of Rs 280 crore for the scheme.