Health Minister J P Nadda on Friday contradicted recent statements made by two BJP members of the Parliamentary Committee of Subordinate Legislation that there is no direct link between tobacco use and cancer.

“Tobacco smoking and chewing is directly related to cancer,” the Minister said in reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, adding that the government would go ahead with its decision to increase the size of pictorial warnings on packs of tobacco products, including on foreign cigarettes. He, however, did not specify the size of the warning.

Nadda was replying to various questions, including that by NCP leader Supriya Sule, who wanted to know when the 85 per cent pictorial warning will be implemented, or at least 65 per cent, as stated by the Prime Minister.

“We will go ahead once the panel submits its report,” Nadda said, adding that the government was crystal clear “that consumption of tobacco has to be reduced”.

The government put off its decision to ask tobacco firms to introduce pictorial warnings covering 85 per cent of packaging for tobacco products from April 1, after the panel urged it to wait till it submits its final report.

A few days ago, the parliamentary panel head and BJP member Dilip Gandhi and another MP, Shyam Charan Gupta, who is a beedi baron, had triggered a row by saying that there was no Indian study to link the use of tobacco with cancer.

Replying to another supplementary by Prahlad Patel (BJP) that while tobacco use was bad, the government should take care of the livelihood of thousands of beedi workers in the Bundelkhand region, Nadda said beedi smoking was equally harmful.

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