Union Minister Maneka Gandhi on Tuesday upped the ante on her demand for ouster of Maharashtra Environment Minister Sudhir Mugantiwar over the killing of tigress Avni and dashed off a letter to state Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, asking him to "consider removing" the minister. "I request you to fix responsibility for the illegal killing of the tigress and consider removing Mugantiwar from the responsibility of the Ministry of Environment and Forest in the state government," Maneka told Fadnavis in her letter, released to media on Tuesday.

"If the environment and forest minister resorts to killing animals instead of protecting them, he is definitely failing in his duty. This is something like the WCD minister working for child traffickers," the Union minister for Women and Child Development wrote in her letter. Gandhi added that she had been speaking to Mugantiwar on the issue of alleged maneater tigress Avni for the past two months and requesting the minister to have the tigress tranquillised and quarantined.