What's He Smoking? BJP Lawmaker's Stand on Cigarettes Triggers Strong Reactions

A BJP parliamentarian's declaration that India has little independent evidence to link cigarettes and cancer has stunned doctors, leaders from other parties and provoked a note of sharp dissent from his own.

DK Gandhi, who is from the ruling BJP and represents Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha, heads a parliamentary committee that's assessing a government proposal to dissuade smoking. Mr Gandhi told NDTV on Monday, "Research that needs to be conducted on this by the Indian government has not been done, on whether this causes cancer or not." After an angry backlash, he said today, "Tobacco is injurious to health, there's no doubt about that. But why should we go by surveys done in other countries?" He also said that crores of people are employed by tobacco-related industries - "surveys should focus on that too." 

"I am shocked with his statement," said opposition leader Supriya Sule, who also represents Maharashtra in Parliament. "He is misinformed about cancer, I will speak to him," she said. "Science is science, I disagree with him," said Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, contradicting his party's lawmaker.



The parliamentary committee headed by Mr Gandhi has said it needs more time to discuss a proposal that asked tobacco companies to stamp health warnings across 85 per cent of the surface of cigarette packets. Last year, Health Minister JP Nadda had said the government wanted that rule to come into effect on April 1. The committee's stand has provided a breather to tobacco firms.



"In a country like ours, where a large section of the population cannot read or write and more users are coming on board, pictorial warnings are the need of the hour," said Bhavna Mukhopadhyay, Executive Director of the Voluntary Health Association of India.

Around 900,000 people die of tobacco-related illnesses in India each year, the second-highest number after China, and experts predict that could rise to 1.5 million by the end of the decade.