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Acting Nepal PM prays for quakes in US
After foot-in-the-mouth remarks by US officials that stung Asia in the past, now it is the turn of Nepal’s acting Prime Minister to make a political gaffe, saying he prayed quakes would hit the US and other developed nations in future instead of Nepal.
After foot-in-the-mouth remarks by US officials that stung Asia in the past, now it is the turn of Nepal’s acting Prime Minister to make a political gaffe, saying he prayed quakes would hit the US and other developed nations in future instead of Nepal.
Deputy Prime Minister Bijay Kumar Gachhedar, who is also the acting PM, made the politically incorrect statement in Parliament on Tuesday while answering lawmakers’ queries about the state’s efforts to provide relief to people hit by Sunday’s earthquake.
Gachhedar tried to defend the government by saying it was not possible for it to prevent earthquakes.
“We can’t stop quakes,” the chief of ethnic party Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (Democratic) said. “India couldn’t do it, China couldn’t do it. Then how can we? I pray to Pashupatinath that in future earthquakes hit the US and other developed nations (instead of Nepal).”
The gaffe comes at a time Nepal’s new Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai is in New York to attend the 66th UN General Assembly and has been invited to a reception to be hosted by American President Barrack Obama.
