She vows to repeat Amethi’s success in Chhattisgarh, attacks Baghel government over women’s safety issues
She vows to repeat Amethi’s success in Chhattisgarh, attacks Baghel govt on issues of women’s safety
Challenging Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will repeat its Amethi election success in Chhattisgarh, Union Minister Smriti Irani on Friday introduced a new slogan – ABC or Amethi-Bilaspur-Chhattisgarh – in the poll-bound state.
Ms Irani was addressing party workers at a ‘Mahtari Hunkar’ rally organized by the BJP’s women’s wing in Bilaspur, 125 km from capital Raipur.
The Union minister, who defeated former Congress president Rahul Gandhi from the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency in 2019 – once considered a pocket borough of the Gandhi family – said Mr. Baghel had also campaigned for Mr. Gandhi in previous elections, but the party there The shares were falling continuously.
“If Mr. Baghel is listening to me, I would like to humbly tell him that in the last assembly election [2022]We forced Congress to lose its deposit which was once its stronghold… like Arun ji [Sao, State BJP president] Told [in his address] that my coming is a sign that we are handing them a similar defeat [for the Congress in next year’s Assembly polls], So, Arun ji, it is A for Amethi, B for Bilaspur and C for Chhattisgarh,” Ms Irani said.
She went on to attack the Congress, particularly beset it over the issue of women’s safety. He claimed that 6,000 women have been raped since Mr Baghel took power in 2018 and that the police do not register cases unless the victim resorts to extreme steps such as suicide.
‘View your record’
Earlier, Mr Baghel questioned the BJP’s rally focusing on women’s safety or the alleged lack of it in the state. Speaking to reporters, he said the BJP should look at other states where it was in power and its own record in Chhattisgarh where it ruled for 15 years before being voted out.
“He should speak on tragic incidents like Jhaliyamari incident (2013 incident of sexual assault on 15 minor children of a tribal girls’ residential school in Kanker district), death of women after vasectomy, cataract surgery, hysterectomy cases. Happened during the previous Raman Singh-led government,” he said, adding that the Union minister should look at the graph of crimes against women in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP rules under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
He also questioned the Center on the suspension of train services in Chhattisgarh. “Smriti Irani ji should say why train services are suspended (in Chhattisgarh). Do women not travel by train? Women mostly prefer this mode of transport. It is convenient and cheap. They (BJP-led Centre) have kept it suspended.