Japan's public safety chief said Tuesday he kept eating a "delicious" bowl of grilled eel rice even as he was notified about an attack that apparently targeted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during election campaigning earlier this month, immediately triggering a backlash from opposition parties.
"I had been looking forward to eating a delicious bowl of grilled eel rice. I was just about to start eating when I received a call from the National Police Agency," National Public Safety Commission chief Koichi Tani said during a party of ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, recalling the April 15 explosives attack that took place in Wakayama Prefecture, western Japan.
"I made sure to eat the bowl of eel rice," Tani said. He was at that time visiting Kochi Prefecture, also in western Japan, to assess earthquake measures.
Tani also oversees security measures for the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima next month.
Hiroshi Ogushi, the election campaign chief of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, criticized Tani's remarks as "extremely irresponsible," while Akira Koike, head of the secretariat of the Japanese Communist Party, slammed them as "alarming."
"He was too lax towards his duties and had no sense of responsibility, and it shows the slackness of the Kishida government," Koike said.
The latest development follows a string of controversial comments made by Cabinet ministers and an aide to Kishida.
Last November, then Justice Minister Yasuhiro Hanashi was dismissed over remarks widely seen as making light of his role in authorizing executions of death-row inmates.
In February, an executive secretary to Kishida was sacked after he told reporters that he would "not want to live next door" to an LGBT couple and that he does "not even want to look at them."
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