Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel breaks silence, says citizens have right to decide food choices

Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel breaks silence, says citizens have right to decide food choices

Darshan DesaiUpdated: Monday, November 15, 2021, 10:18 PM IST
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Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel breaks silence, says citizens have right to decide food choices | PTI Photo

Ahmedabad: Days after as many as four municipal corporations announced a drive against streetside eggs and non-veg stalls, Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel on Monday broke his silence stating that every citizen had the right to eat what they wished to.

Speaking at an event in Anand district in the evening, the Chief Minister, “Everyone can eat what he or she wished, there is no question of veg or non-veg.”

However, Patel added that it was necessary to ensure that the quality of food was good and did not harm people’s health. He also said the municipal corporations could remove any stalls encroaching on the roads or creating traffic disruption.

Patel’s statement has come a day after some 17 lakh street vendors of veg and non-veg threatened to launch an agitation against this move to remove them. They have also demanded that the Street Vendors Act, 2014, be immediately implemented in the State.

The Chief Minister asserted, “The decision (to remove eggs and non-veg stalls) was of the municipal corporations and not of the State Government. The State Government believes that everyone could eat whatever they wanted, veg or non-veg. Only that quality needed to be ensured.”

Around the same time when Patel made this statement, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s town planning committee had asserted that all non-veg and eggs stalls and kiosks on main roads and near educational institutions as well as religious places would be removed.

Town planning committee chairman Devang Dani went to the extent of stating that, “The smell near these stalls could be nauseating to the extent that one had to cover one’s nose.” Dani said the drive would start from Tuesday.

It may be recalled that Rajkot, Vadodara, Junagadh and Bhavnagar municipal corporations, all ruled by the BJP, had taken this decision one after the other from November 9. Ahmedabad is supposed to follow suit from Tuesday.

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