Parliament panel member’s remarks on smoking effects spark row
3 April 2015 11:57 PM GMT
A controversy broke out on Thursday over remarks by ‘beedi’ baron and a parliamentary committee member from BJP Shyam Charan Gupta suggesting “nil” effect of smoking, evoking sharp reaction from Opposition parties which sought his removal from the panel.
“I can produce a lot of people in front of you who are chain smokers of beedi and till date they have had no disease, no cancer... You get diabetes due to eating sugar, rice, potatoes. Why don’t you write warnings for all these things as well,” said Gupta, a Lok Sabha MP from Allahabad.
His remarks were criticised by Opposition parties including Congress, SP and CPI-M which alleged that there was a “conflict of interest” as Gupta was in tobacco trade and also a member of Parliamentary Committee of Subordinate Legislation looking into the rules regarding tobacco sale in the country.
Terming Gupta’s inclusion as a member in the committee as “grossly unethical”, Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha said, “...Here you have an elected MP, who sits on a panel and clearly does not make disclosures. If he is running a Rs 250 crore worth of business (beedi)... The conflict of interest is culpable.”
“I can produce a lot of people in front of you who are chain smokers of beedi and till date they have had no disease, no cancer... You get diabetes due to eating sugar, rice, potatoes. Why don’t you write warnings for all these things as well,” said Gupta, a Lok Sabha MP from Allahabad.
His remarks were criticised by Opposition parties including Congress, SP and CPI-M which alleged that there was a “conflict of interest” as Gupta was in tobacco trade and also a member of Parliamentary Committee of Subordinate Legislation looking into the rules regarding tobacco sale in the country.
Terming Gupta’s inclusion as a member in the committee as “grossly unethical”, Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha said, “...Here you have an elected MP, who sits on a panel and clearly does not make disclosures. If he is running a Rs 250 crore worth of business (beedi)... The conflict of interest is culpable.”
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