Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir sparked a controversy on Tuesday with his remarks in which he targeted the businessmen who gifted BMW cars to India’s Rio Olympic stars.
Ahir, while attending a function in Gadchiroli district, said that the money ‘uselessly’ spent on gifting BMWs to India’s Rio stars should be spent in distributing sewing machine to poor people.
“Some people (referring to businessmen who gifted BMWs) are perplexed. If the money spent on one BMW was spent on poor people here, how happy they would have been,” said Ahir.
Sachin Tendulkar had presented BMW cars to Rio Olympics silver medallist shuttler PV Sindhu and bronze winner grappler Sakshi Malik along with gymnast Dipa Karmakar and badminton coach Pullela Gopichand.
The cars were actually gifted by V Chamundeshwarnath, also known as Chamundi, a former Andhra Pradesh batsman and Sachin is said to have only presented the keys to the Rio stars.