Sending a smelly message to a local government that failed to tackle soaring onion prices, an Indian opposition MP showed up at a parliament hearing... with a rope of the vegetables around his neck.
Making big headlines in the local media, Shiv Chandra Ram has entered the legislative assembly in the state of Bihar wearing a sizeable garland of onion bulbs, garnering a round of chuckles among fellow lawmakers.
For the uninitiated, the onion garland may have looked like an exotic supplement to Ram’s traditional Indian attire, but it had more to do with the cost of living than fashion, he explained.
Ram, a member of Bihar’s opposition party that represents lowest-income people, said it was the state government’s broken promises that pushed him into setting up the stunt. They failed to contain the onion prices, thus making lives of the poor even more miserable.
“I am going inside the House wearing this ‘mala’ [garland] as I want the honorable Chief Minister [of Bihar] to behold this sight. I hope that it would compel him to take some serious action,” he proclaimed.
“The growing prices will deprive the people of their staple food,” he told the media. Onions, which used to come for less than 50 rupees ($0.70) per kilogram, now sell at no less than 80 rupees, he complained.
Ram, whose garland had cost him 100 rupees, demanded that the prices go down to a 10th of that. In other locations in India, onion prices have skyrocketed by some 40 percent in just one week, on the back of sudden supply shortages.
The price spikes have been blamed on unseasonal rainfall, which severely damaged crop centers in the state of Maharashtra.
Meanwhile, the Indian government decided to temporarily relax fumigation regulations and boost imports of onions, in a bid to decrease the price for India’s major kitchen staple. Onions are expected to come from Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey and Iran.
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