TN SC/ST commission pulls up collector after beef goes off biryani festival menu

The ‘Ambur Biryani Festival’ was postponed with the Tirupattur district administration citing rain as a reason even as tension built up over the exclusion of beef stalls.

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu scheduled castes & scheduled tribes (SC/ST) commission has sought an explanation from the Tirupattur district collector for taking beef off the menu for a biryani festival.

The Tamil Nadu SC/ST commission received a petition that the Tirupattur district administration, exhibiting more than 20 biryani stalls, had specifically said that beef biryani shall stand excluded. (Representational Image)

The three-day ‘Ambur Biryani Festival’, scheduled to be held between May 12-15, was postponed with the district administration citing rain as a reason even as tension built up over the exclusion of beef stalls.

Biryani sellers have been hoping to get a GI (geographical indication) tag for the famous Ambur biryani which sells across the state.

The SC/ST commission received a petition that the district administration, exhibiting more than 20 biryani stalls including chicken and fish, had specifically said that beef biryani shall stand excluded.

The panel decided to take up the matter for enquiry.

“You are required to submit your remarks as to why the same shall not be taken as a discrimination on communal basis, and initiate action for such an official discrimination,” said the commission’s notice addressed to the district collector, Amar Kushwaha.

Vanni Arasu, deputy general secretary of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), an ally of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), took to Twitter to say that there should be no discrimination in food and that it goes against chief minister M K Stalin’s idea of the Dravidian Model. “We demand that beef, which is consumed by 75% of the pe,ople be included in the biryani festival,” Arasu said.