Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is celebrating her 61st birthday today (August 18). A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician and a trusted lieutenant of PM Modi, Sitharaman has earlier headed the Union defence ministry during the first stint of the Modi government. In 2014, she was Minister of State and was handling commerce & industry with independent charge.
However, while serving as Union Finance Minister, Sitharaman got an “elitist” tag after she said that onion price issue did not affect her much as she and her family didn't use onion prominently in their food.
The comments came amid soaring onion prices in the country. The incident took place in December 2019 during the winter session of Lok Sabha. She made the remark in the Lok Sabha while responding to interruptions by some opposition members while she was speaking on rising onion prices.
"I don't eat a lot of onions and garlic, so don't worry. I come from a family that doesn't care much for onions," she said.
Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule had then asked the Finance Minister about increasing bad loans and problems faced by farmers growing only onions. "Why has the production of onion gone down? We export rice and milk and so many other products. Onion grower is a small framer and he really needs to be protected," Sule asked.
Sitharaman responded to her by speaking about her personal habit related to onion usage and spoke about what measures the government was taking to keep onion prices in check, which included improving technology for better storage.
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.
(Inputs from Agencies)
