A funny conversation between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her party worker has gone viral on the internet, in which the Chief Minister is seen giving health-related tips to an overweight municipality president.
During the administrative review meeting, the Trinamool Congress chief asked the chairman of Jhalda Municipality why his stomach was so protruding. Expressing concern about the problem of overweight, he said, “The way your belly is growing, you can fall any day. Don’t you exercise?”
A shy Suresh Kumar Agarwal said he was fine and without illness. “I don’t have sugar problem and I don’t have blood pressure problem”.
But Mamata told him that there might be some liver problem otherwise “how can you have such a vast Madhya Pradesh,” she quipped.
The municipal leader insisted that he does not take any medicine and exercises regularly for one and a half hours. The worker claimed that he does 1,000 kapalbhati (breathing exercises) per day.
West Bengal CM said, “It is not possible, if you do 1,000 Kapalbhati every day, you will not have such a big stomach”.
“I will give 10,000 if you do pranayama a thousand times,” said the chief minister, stirring peas of laughter to the audience.
Agarwal later admitted that he had an unusual habit of eating “pakoras” every morning. The witty Banerjee then advised the TMC leader to stop eating pakodas.
Agarwal, 62, said he would “definitely try” to follow his advice. Agarwal said that CM Banerjee is a fitness enthusiast. Whenever she is on administrative tours of the districts, she is often caught on camera going for morning walks. She is known to walk several miles every day on her treadmill and is seen walking several kilometers during election campaigns. Banerjee also wears a digital wristwatch to track her step count and monitor her heart rate.