May 5 :    May 5:  The beef stakes seem to be going higher, with the BJP threatening to continue its agitation against McDonald's and the burger giant stressing that its French fries here are shuddh shakahari - innocent of cow or any other animal meat. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) today threatened to sue the food conglomerate while the Shiv Sena demanded that all its food products be mandatorily lab tested. The Sena announced that it was carrying out tests on the French fries. 'The onus, however, is primarily on the US fast food chain to conclusively prove that the item did not contain beef as it has hurt feelings of Hindus,' Sena spokesman Subhash Desai said. McDonald's India brought along its suppliers, McCain Foods India Limited and Lamb Weston, to back up its claims that its French fries and other vegetarian products do not contain any animal extracts. 'From the beginning, we had made it clear that no beef or pork would be used in any of our vegetarian or non-vegetarian products,' said Amit Jatia, who runs McDonald's India, at a news conference. BJP activists had smeared a McDonald's 'mascot' with cow dung yesterday at an outlet in Mumbai to 'purify' the atmosphere 'sullied with beef'. The party claimed that McDonald's was using beef in its French fries in India, too, after a lawyer from Seattle, US, filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of 'misleading' vegetarians by using beef fat in the fries. In the US, McDonald's uses beef extract in its French fries for flavour. 'But what holds in the US does not hold in India. Here, McDonald's has developed a menu keeping in mind the cultural and religious sentiments. Given the number of vegetarians here, we have even developed a costlier eggless mayonnaise. 'There is complete physical segregation of vegetarian and non-vegetarian items while they are being processed, starting from our suppliers' ends, through our kitchens, until they reach our customers,' Jatia said. But the BJP is not ready to buy the argument. It said it would step up protests if McDonald's did not agree to 'an independent probe'. 'We have every apprehension that the potato wedges have beef,' said party leader Atul Shah, who is leading the 'anti-McDonald's campaign' from the front. 'We suspect that the beef is added before the potato wedges go into the freezing plant,' Shah added. McDonald's India imports most of the potato for its French fries from New Zealand. McCain Foods, its biggest potato supplier, processes the potato and par-fries it. It is then put into the freezing plant, to be refried and sold at the McDonald's outlets. Jaideep Mukherjee, country manager, McCain Foods India Limited, said the company's factory in Timaru, New Zealand, par-fries the potatoes in vegetable oil only. The product is 100 per cent vegetarian, he said. Rajiv Goyal, director, business development (India subcontinent), of Lamb Weston, issued a similar statement for its factory located in Oregon, US. He said products bound for India are totally different from the ones bound for North American markets. McDonald's US has also issued a statement which says that in India, no beef or pork flavourings are used in vegetarian menu items. Similar is the case with predominantly Muslim countries in Southeast Asia, West Asia and Africa, it adds. The argument did not wash with either the Shiv Sena or the VHP, both of which mobilised their activists in large numbers to protest. The Sena's northern India president, Jai Bhagwan Goel, demanded that all the branches of McDonald's should immediately shut down. Demonstrations were held at the central Delhi office of McDonald's in Jor Bagh. Goel later presented a memorandum to the Prime Minister and the Union health minister demanding action against the fast food chain. The Sena spokesman said: 'The party would adopt tough measures on the issue if our doubts about the product are proved right.'