Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar recently expressed his concern on the increase in girls consuming liquor. Parrikar was addressing the State Youth Parliament organized by the State Legislature Department. Media quoted him saying, “I have begun to fear now because even girls have started drinking beer. The tolerance limit is being crossed. I am not talking about everyone. I am not talking about those sitting here.”
However, his concern didn’t go quite well with the peeps on social media and had to face a severe backlash. He faced criticism on social media for his remarks. He claimed that media twisted his statement and that he had only referred to the “school and college students”.
Referring to his colleague Vijai Sardesai, Parrikar also asked politicians in his cabinet to be careful while making statements. Sardesai had called north Indians visiting the coastal state as the “scum of the earth”. Parrikar didn’t completely deny his highlighting the issue but added that he interpreted it in an incorrect way.
“If someone wants to purposely twist the statement, we cannot help it. It was twisted in such a way that finally the interviewer (the person who had taken the public interview of Parrikar at the event) had to intervene and tweet that I was referring to school and college students,” he told reporters here, adding that he had “not asked anyone not to drink,” said the CM.
He went further to state that his remarks were an expression of worry and not fear. “I had said it was my worry, not even fear. Worry is different from fear.” He added, “Worry is fundamental to every person”.
Parrikar supported Sardesai’s claim by referring to an incident of a tourist urinating from a bus window. The video had gone viral on the social media. “He (Sardesai) should not have used very harsh words. I have spoken to him about it. He was not wrong in what he was highlighting. But he interpreted it in a wrong way or rather, he was not able to express it correctly,” Parrikar said. The minister, however, corrected his statement later.
Reports flew in of Parrikar taken to a Mumbai hospital after health examination at Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH). He complained of food poisoning and stomachache, an official in the Chief Minister’s Office said.