After Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's bizarre comment that her family didn't eat onion much in the wake of the skyrocketing onion price, another Union minister came up with an outlandish statement over the situation.
“I am a vegetarian. I have never tasted an onion. So, how will a person like me know about the situation (market prices) of onions," said Union Minister Ashwini Choubey.
#WATCH "I am a vegetarian. I have never tasted an onion. So, how will a person like me know about the situation (market prices) of onions," says Union Minister Ashwini Choubey pic.twitter.com/cubekfUrYW
— ANI (@ANI) December 5, 2019
Sitharaman's comment—"I belong to a family which does not eat onion and garlic"—drew sharp reactions from the opposition which asked if she eats avocado. She was also compared to Marie Antoinette, wife France’s King Louis XVI, who when told that their subjects had no bread, infamously said, “Let them eat cake”.
Sitharaman had, on Wednesday, said in the Lok Sabha that the government had taken several steps to check rising prices of onion and also initiated steps to improve technology for better storage of the kitchen staple. Attributing shortage to low production, the minister had said there were severe "structural problems" related to onions.
The government had said the state-run trading firm MMTC has placed another onion import order of 4,000 tonnes from Turkey and the shipments are expected to reach by mid-January. This is in addition to 17,090 tonnes of onions already contracted, which includes 6,090 tonnes from Egypt and 11,000 tonnes from Turkey, it said in a statement.
