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Madhya Pradesh Horticulture and Food-Processing Minister Kusum Mehdele has triggered a row with her remarks on farmer suicides in the state.
Talking to media persons in Raipur, she said: "If someone's young son dies then he/she doesn't commit suicide, then why end your life during drought? It is not a bigger tragedy than death of a son."
Just as the demise of any person associated with the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board was connected to the inconsistencies therein, every farmer's death is being linked with drought. The farmers are patient and hardworking. Every farmer's death is not a suicide, she said in response to media queries.
Mehdele, 71, has often made headlines with her unconventional, controversial remarks.
The day a newspaper report about Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s aversion to including eggs in anganwadi meals appeared, she shared the dais with him in Jabalpur and said she saw nothing wrong in prescribing fish or eggs to those who eat non-vegetarian food to fight malnutrition.
In comments that made many in the audience laugh, she said, 'You must have eaten, or at least heard about how tasty frog legs are.'
Before that, when Kailash Satyarthi had won the Nobel Peace prize, she had admitted being ignorant about him; she was among the ministers and legislators who 'congratulated' their ministerial colleague Kailash Vijayvargiya.
In March this year, she sought a law that allowed people to domesticate or keep as pets big cats like lions and tigers for their conservation. In a proposal sent to the state forest department, she cited legal provisions in some African and South-East Asian countries like Thailand which have helped bring about an increase in the population of the big cats.