NEW DELHI: Courting controversy, BJP Member of Parliament Udit Raj on Monday suggested that Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt could win nine Olympic gold medals because his trainer advised him to eat beef twice a day.
“Usain Bolt of Jamaica was poor and his trainer advised him to eat beef both the times and he scored 9 gold medals in Olympics,” the Dalit leader tweeted. The comments came at a time when Dalits and Muslims are being targeted by cow vigilantes and right-wing gropus on the suspicion of carrying beef.
Udit Raj, MP from North-west Delhi, however, tried to play down the controversy saying that he merely repeated what Bolt’s trainer had said.
“All I wanted to say that giving excuses that we don’t have infrastructure or there is corruption should be done away with and a lesson on dedication should be learnt from Usain Bolt... What I wanted to say is our players should find ways and means as he found ways and means,” he said, adding there is no lack of facilities for sportspersons here.
Further, he tweeted, “My tweet is not even remotely connected to advocate beef eating. Rather it is a reproduction of Bolt’s trainer’s statement.”
Meanwhile, reacting to Union Tourism and Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma’controversial comment that foreign female tourists must refrain from wearing skirts for their own safety, Congress leader and former Union minister Manish Tewari said, “If ‘Pandit’ Mahesh Sharma has his way, he will put every woman in this country in a burqa.”