Sitharaman eats onions only when in opposition: Tweeple taunt FM with old tweet

#SayItLikeNirmalaTai trends following FM's comment that her family doesn't eat onions

nirmala-tweet Tweet from 2013 on onions comes back to haunt FM Nirmala Sitharaman

A day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a bizarre statement during a Lok Sabha debate that she came from a family that did not consume onions, netizens are having a field day on Twitter. Some users thought her comment, amid onion prices rising as much as 500 per cent in certain regions, was insensitive, arrogant and irresponsible. 

A few Twitter users have even dug up an old Sitharaman tweet—dated 2013, when she was in the opposition—in which she questioned the then UPA-2 government for spike in onion prices. 

Sitharaman made the comment while responding to Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule's question on the reasons behind fall in onion production in the country. "I don't eat a lot of onions and garlic, so don't worry. I belong to a family which does not eat onion and garlic," Sitharaman said in response during debate on Wednesday. 

Onion prices remain high in the range of Rs 75-100/kg across major cities of the country. The prices are on a northward spiral in India following crop failure owing to indifferent monsoon pattern in onion-producing states like Mahrashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The cabinet has approved import of 1.2 lakh tonnes of onions to improve the domestic supply and control prices. The government has already banned exports and imposed stock holding limits to check price rise.