‘Government learnt a lesson from Dadri’
Food a personal choice and fallout of Ikhlaq’s lynching could’ve been handled better, says Javadekar.
NEW DELHI: Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday conceded that the Centre should have communicated faster with people after the Dadri beef killing in September and underlined what people ate was a matter of personal choice.
“We believe food is a matter of personal choice... no one can dictate people,” Javadekar said on Tuesday, hoping to set the record straight about the BJP and the Centre’s approach that has been blamed by the Opposition for stoking passions.
The senior BJP leader – who described the Congress’ march to the President against what it called growing intolerance in the country as “a political stunt” — also spoke out against intolerance in course of a panel discussion on NDTV.
Javadekar distanced the BJP from its leader Kailash Vijayvargiya who called actor Shahrukh Khan “anti-national” for his critical remarks, saying Vijayvargiya wasn’t the party’s spokesman. “I condemn his comments outright,” he told the TV channel.
The government has been under attack for its silence over the “highly vitiated atmosphere” in the country, particularly after the beef lynching in Dadri in September-end.
Javadekar conceded the government could have handled the fall-out of the Dadri lynching better. Right communication at the right time is a lesson from Dadri, he said.