The vegetarian vs non-vegetarian debate continues with no winners yet

"BJP leaders are man-eaters. Many BJP leaders are involved in a lot of scandals," says a Congress leader

The vegetarian versus non-vegetarian debate continues but there are no winners yet. A recent round of the debate has taken on a different dimension. After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) criticised the Madhya Pradesh government’s decision to introduce eggs in state-run Anganwadi (rural child care centre) meals, a Congress leader and public health and engineering minister, Sukhdev Panse, said: “BJP leaders are man-eaters. Many BJP leaders are involved in a lot of scandals.” He also said the BJP’s reaction was more like “a tempest in a teapot”. That was in response to the leader of the Opposition, Gopal Bhargava (pictured), saying if children were given eggs from their childhood, they would turn into cannibals.

Whose idea was it anyway?

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (pictured) and his predecessor, Akhilesh Yadav, often spar on infrastructure projects, with each claiming credit for them. While Yadav criticises his successor for repackaging projects started during his regime, Adityanath takes pride on the purported improvement in the perception about the state in the eyes of investors. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, led by Adityanath, is now looking to revive three mega projects conceptualised by the erstwhile Yadav regime. They pertain to townships and a plastic manufacturing hub, and are in Kanpur-Unnao, Prayagraj (Allahabad), and Auraiya districts. The chief minister has, according to sources, directed officials to remove the roadblocks in the way of land acquisition for them.

Whitewashing criticism

After a storm was raked up because the tri-colour painted on the wall of a village secretariat office in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh was layered with the colours (blue and white) of the YSR Congress, the state government stepped in to buy peace. Within days, the Jaganmohan Reddy government, run by the YSR Congress, ordered whitewashing the wall. However, it also suspended the panchayat secretary for taking the call to paint the wall with the colours of the national flag after questions were raised on whether a wall was an appropriate place for this and whether it wasn’t a violation of the flag code.