Congress leader Nana Patole's bizzare remark, says 'Namibian cheetahs responsible for Lumpy virus outbreak'

While Congress leader Rahul Gandhi created a blunder after he measured wheat flour in litres, Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole on Monday issued a bizarre statement saying that the lumpy skin disease virus in India is being spread by the eight Cheetahs that were brought in from Namibia to which he called Nigeria.

To be noted, the Cheetahs arrived from the African nation and were released into Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park last month whereas the lumpy skin disease has lingered around for over three months.

Apart from the claim being unscientific and having no basis in any timeline, the leader also said that they were Nigerian cheetahs, which they are not.

“To cause harm to the farmers, this BJP government has intentionally made this arrangement”, Patole was heard saying.

The first case of the lumpy skin disease was reported in India in April this year and has so far killed over 50,000 cattle across the country.

BJP reacts:

Reacting to Patole's statement, BJP leader Shehzad Poonawallah said, "Nana Patole who is Rahul Gandhi of Maharashtra says Lumpy Virus originated in Nigeria & it came because Modi ji brought Cheetahs! Cheetahs came from Namibia. Does he know Nigeria & Namibia are different nations? Congress has always spread such lies & rumours."

While another MLA Ram Kadam said that Congress should get a Nobel Prize for their theory of the Namibian Cheetahs causing a lumpy virus outbreak. "This is ridiculous. He has been hogging the limelight since he became Maharashtra's Congress President. The allegations that he has levelled are completely baseless and if the Congress leadership have such kind of logic, then the entire Congress party must be awarded a Nobel Prize", Kadam told to a news channel.

"We brought the Cheetahs in our country, so proud moment it was and instead of appreciating that the Congress leadership is correlating it with Lumpy (virus), what is the correlation with that?" the MLA questioned. "Just to mislead people, they have been making any points which are baseless. So my point is that Congress leaders should come forward and apologise", the Mumbai BJP MLA added.