New Delhi: The BJP on Friday attacked Rahul Gandhi, saying “smash the prospects of women” is the real mindset of the Congress leader and his party’s governments.
“For Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, the slogan ‘smash the patriarchy’ is nothing but empty words and political rhetoric,” BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj told reporters here.
This came a day after Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy sacked Forest Minister Konda Surekha from the Council of Ministers with immediate effect amid a row over some remarks made against him and others by the woman leader’s daughter.
Surekha, on her part, claimed she did nothing wrong and accused the chief minister of doing “blackmail politics”.
Reacting to the development, Swaraj said, “Just yesterday, in Telangana, we witnessed how a senior leader from his (Rahul Gandhi’s) own party, the Congress, was humiliated and dropped from the Cabinet by the Congress government in the state.”
Surekha has levelled “extremely serious” allegations against the Congress government and the Telangana chief minister, she said.
“I want to ask why Rahul Gandhi remains silent regarding these accusations of injustice and blackmail? Perhaps it is because, for him, ‘smash the patriarchy’ is merely an election slogan, nothing more than political rhetoric,” she added.
Swaraj alleged that in reality, the mindset of Gandhi, the Congress and its governments is to “smash the prospects of women if they are progressive”.
“You may have observed that in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka – the states governed by the Congress – not a single woman was deemed worthy of being entrusted with the responsibility of a ministerial post,” the BJP leader added.
Addressing an event in Pune on August 22, Gandhi had lashed out at the “Manusmriti mindset” and urged girl students to “smash patriarchy”, while also taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his remark that he was shocked to hear girls using abusive language during the recent protest at Jantar Mantar.
Interacting with girl students at his ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ outreach programme here, Gandhi said women belong to themselves and not to their fathers, husbands or sons, and termed as shameful the Manusmriti’s prescription that a woman should remain under the authority of male relatives at every stage of her life.
