‘Insulting Women Is Congress Identity’: BJP Demands K'taka Minister’s Ouster Over Bengaluru Molestation Remark
New Delhi, Apr 7 (PTI) The BJP on Monday demanded that Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra seek Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara's resignation over his comment that incidents like molestation do happen at times in a big city like Bengaluru.
BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla alleged that Parameshwara is a "serial offender", claiming that he had made similar remarks trivialising crimes against women during sexual assaults against them in the Karnataka capital in 2017.
The BJP leader told reporters that the Karnataka Congress leader has exhibited a brazen display of "most shocking, misogynist, patriarchal, sexist and obnoxious mindset" by trivialising an incident that has shocked the country, especially women of the state.
Parameshwara was responding to the incident where a woman was molested in a secluded place in Suddaguntepalya.
"Police are working continuously round-the-clock ignoring rain and cold. That is why there is peace in Bengaluru. In a big city like Bengaluru, here and there incidents like this do take place," the minister said.
Poonawalla noted that the city police has been unable to apprehend the criminals and accused the minister of standing with the culprits. He claimed that the crimes against women have seen a 50 per cent rise in the Congress-ruled state.
He said Parameshwara might have dismissed the insult heaped on Draupadi, the famous character from the epic Mahabharata, as a minor incident even though it ended up triggering the legendary war between Pandavas and Kauravas.
Poonawalla asked if Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's "ladki hun lad sakti hun" campaign, which she had spearheaded in the BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh in the run-up to the 2022 assembly poll, is a mere "empty tokenism and slogan".
He said, "Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra should break silence and seek resignation from G Parameshwara." The BJP spokesperson cited several cases of crimes against women, including the gang-rape of an Israeli tourist, to target the Congress government and added that several Congress leaders in the past have made similarly provocative statements related to women.
Poonawalla said several women functionaries of the Congress were sacked in the past for raising questions on the treatment of women by party leaders.
"Insulting women is the identity of the Congress," he alleged and cited Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury's controversial "Rashtrapatni" barb for President Droupadi Murmu.
Chowdhury later apologised for his remark.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
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