Union Minister Giriraj Singh Union Minister Giriraj Singh

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav saying he had “abused” all “Yaduvanshis” with his comments about “what they eat” (Lalu had said that Hindus also eat beef) — in the wake of the September 28 Dadri lynching — his colleague and Union Minister Giriraj Singh added his wisdom too.

“There is a difference between a man’s relationship with his wife and that with his sister. Similarly, there is a distinction between meat of goat and cow,” said the Union Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

“Would those who eat goat meat consume dog meat if they are offered? Indians do consider their relationship with mother and sister as sacred…in the same way we should approach gau mata with the same reverence,” Singh told The Indian Express from Nawada in Bihar.

When asked how he viewed a man’s relationship with his wife, the Minister said: “There is a difference in the sacredness between a man and his wife and man and his sister.”

Singh claimed he was responding to Lalu’s comment that there was no difference between cow meat and goat meat.

Beef and cow slaughter have become hot-button issues in the Bihar campaign after 50-year-old Mohammed Aqlakh was killed following rumours that his family had stored and eaten beef. Accusing BJP leaders of “polarising” society by raking up these issues, Lalu had said that Hindus also eat beef. With the BJP leaders launching an attack on him for his remark, the former Bihar chief minister explained that beef does not mean “go maans” (cow meat) and those who eat meat do not differentiate between “gomans” and goat meat.

In another speech, he said that President Pranab Mukherjee’s remarks — on tolerance as core to the survival of India — should be the “guiding principle.”

Singh, Lok Sabha MP from Nawada, sparked a controversy during the campaign ahead of the Lok Sabha elections when he said Modi’s critics should go to Pakistan. Even after becoming a Union Minister, he was caught on camera saying that had Rajiv Gandhi married a “Nigerian” woman instead of the “fair-skinned” Sonia Gandhi, the Congress party would not have accepted her as its leader.

More recently, Singh annoyed some BJP leaders when he said no “sawarna” (upper-caste) person can become the Chief Minister if the BJP-led NDA won two-thirds majority in the state polls. Although it was considered as a bid to counter the RSS chief’s remarks on revisiting reservations, BJP leaders expressed unhappiness over the statement saying it would upset their upper-caste support base.

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