Congress leader P Chidambaram, who attended Parliament on Thursday after being granted bail by the Supreme Court a day before in the INX Media Case, slammed Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for her remark on onions in Parliament.
Protesting against price rise with members of his party, Chidambaram said: "I thought the finance minister said yesterday she does not eat onions, she is not bothered... What does she eat? Does she eat avocado? She does not eat onions.”
The former finance minister repeated the charge during his press conference when he said the government should have planned better for the crisis over the kitchen staple and there was no use exporting onions now. “Look at the response of the FM… She says 'I don’t eat onions'... She calls you onion-eating people,” he said.
The Congress also hit out at Sitharaman on Twitter.
Everything served here is prepared with a dash of arrogance, a pinch of ignorance & heaps of incompetence. #EkThiEconomy #SayItLikeNirmalaTai pic.twitter.com/DfBBGrUgB4— Congress (@INCIndia) December 5, 2019
On Wednesday, as Lok Sabha debated the rising prices, Sitharaman revealed that onions are not a part of her family's diet. "I don't eat a lot of onions and garlic, so don't worry. I come from a family that doesn't care much about onions and garlic," she said on Wednesday while replying to a question by Supriya Sule. Her surprising remark ended up drawing laughter from her colleagues in the Lower House.
#WATCH: FM Sitharaman says "Main itna lehsun, pyaaz nahi khati hoon ji. Main aise pariwar se aati hoon jaha onion, pyaaz se matlab nahi rakhte" when an MP intervenes&asks her 'Aap pyaaz khaate hain?' while she was answering NCP's Supriya Sule's ques on production&price of onions. pic.twitter.com/i6OG7GN775— ANI (@ANI) December 4, 2019
Prices of onion in many places have crossed Rs 100 per kg because of less production. Explaining further on the crisis, the minister said that the government has taken several steps to check rising prices of onion include ban on exports, imposition of stock limit, import and transfer of onion from surplus to deficit area.
Attributing shortage to low production, the minister said there are severe structural problems related to onions. "One is we don't have scientifically advanced methods of storing...So that is one of the things, so we need to have greater scientific storage facility for onions we have started working on it...then also to give better storage capacities within that region particularly around Lasalgaon," she said.
Comments
0 comment