PM Takaichi Tells Farm Minister to Stay in Office after Gaffe

Tokyo, Oct. 8 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Thursday that she has instructed agriculture minister Kazuo Yana to stay in office after reprimanding him for making inappropriate remarks about cutting road budgets for municipalities whose mayors did not support him in an election.

During the day's question sessions held at both chambers of the Diet, the country's parliament, Takaichi said she "strongly reprimanded" Yana over the remarks about road construction funding cuts at municipalities whose leaders backed his rival in the February general election.

The prime minister also said she told him to "work hard and make up for it through his work."

The opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan demanded Yana's early resignation and indicated that it would not attend a session at the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Committee at the Senate, the upper chamber previously called the House of Councillors, to hear his policy speech.

Masayo Tanabu, secretary-general of the CDP, said that the minister's "attitude of trying to use the budgets for political retaliation or quid pro quo is absolutely unacceptable."

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]