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Indian outcry over 'meal for five rupees' claim
Daily Telegraph - July 27, 2013
The claims were made by senior party leaders as they defended new government figures that showed poverty had declined by more than 15 per cent since Congress came to power in 2004.
Its figures were challenged by opponents and anti-poverty campaigners who said they were based on the assumption that people living on 27 rupees per day in rural India and 33 rupees per day in cities were not poor.
Several Congress Party leaders made a series of claims on how little it costs in India to buy a meal. Raj Babbar, a former Bollywood star and now Congress MP, said he could eat well in Mumbai for 12 rupees. "I can get a lot of rice, dal, sambar and some vegetables too," he said. His Congress colleague Rasheed Masood claimed he could buy a filling meal for five rupees close to Old Delhi's Jama Masjid mosque.
Their claims were met with outrage by opposition leaders who accused the government of insensitivity. Some compared them to Marie Antoinette's advice, when told her subjects had no bread, to "let them eat cake".
Varun Gandhi, a leader of the Hindu nationalist BJP and grandson of Indira Gandhi, the former prime minister, said the only place meals could be bought so cheaply was in the Indian parliament's subsidised canteen for MPs.
The cheapest meals in the capital are in the Nizamuddin and Old Delhi quarters, where the poor squat outside dedicated cafes for benefactors to buy them a 10-rupee or 20-rupee token for a meal.
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