Angry scenes in Indian parliament over footage of Rajan Baburao Vichare trying to push chapati into fasting man's mouth

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

India's parliament erupted in anger on Wednesday after television footage showed a hardline Hindu nationalist politician apparently trying to force-feed a Muslim man during the fasting month of Ramadan.

Opposition Congress MPs launched raucous protests, saying the politician in question had violated the man's religious beliefs by aggressively trying to shove a chapati or piece of bread into his mouth.

"It is absolutely reprehensible and should be condemned in the strongest possible manner," Congress party spokesman Manish Tewaritold reporters later.

Rajan Baburao Vichare is a member of the the hardline Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena, a key ally of the the prime minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), which swept to power at May elections.

The incident is likely to fan concern among Muslims and other religious minorities over Modi's Hindu nationalist government.

In the footage, which was aired on national television, a group of Shiv Sena politicians can be seen confronting a catering supervisor in New Delhi last Thursday. They were complaining about the quality of food offered at a guest house for officials from the state of Maharashtra, where Shiv Sena is based.

Vichare can be seen attempting several times to push the bread into the supervisor's mouth as a crowd gathered. Vichare said he was not trying to break the supervisor's religious fast, but trying to demonstrate that the chapatis served were too hard.

"This was only a protest against the quality of food and other arrangements at the Maharashtra Sadan [guest house] where all the important dignitaries come and stay," Vichare told the Headlines Today news channel.

"The canteen management here is in a bad state. The chapatis they made didn't even break. The quality of vegetables and pulses is bad."

"Making this a religious issue doesn't make sense," he said. The catering company's general manager said the supervisor had been "deeply pained and hurt" over the incident as "religious sentiments are attached".

The manager said the politicians had marched into the dining hall flanked by television crews and threw kitchen items around.

"They also issued physical threats to the kitchen and service staff while using highly objectionable language," the manager said in an email to a Maharashtra government official, which was obtained by the Indian Express.

Shiv Sena, which has a history of intimidation and creating unrest against minorities, won 18 seats at the election and is now the sixth biggest party in parliament.