Bengaluru, Nov. 11 -- The BJP on Wednesday hit back at the Congress government in Karnataka over the ethanol-blending controversy, with Leader of Opposition R Ashoka accusing the minister raising concerns over fuel quality of potentially being responsible for alleged irregularities, while defending the Centre's ethanol-blending programme as beneficial to farmers.
The counterattack came after Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Rizwan Arshad alleged that petrol marketed as E20 in Karnataka contained between 26 and 31.2 per cent ethanol, exceeding the prescribed 20 per cent blend, and questioned the transparency of testing by oil marketing companies (OMCs).
Arshad said the state government had collected 63 petrol samples from...