Challenging Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would replicate its Amethi electoral success in Chhattisgarh, Union Minister Smriti Irani introduced a new slogan — ABC or Amethi-Bilaspur-Chhattisgarh — in the poll-bound State on Friday
Ms. Irani was addressing party workers at the ‘Mahtari Hunkar’ rally organised by the BJP’s women’s wing in Bilaspur, 125 kilometres from the capital, Raipur.
The Union Minister, who had in 2019 defeated former Congress president Rahul Gandhi from the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency — once considered a pocket borough of the Gandhi family — said that Mr. Baghel, too, had campaigned for Mr. Gandhi in the last elections but the stocks of the party had been continuously diminishing there.
“If Mr. Baghel is listening to me, I wish to humbly tell him that in the last Assembly elections [2022], we had forced the Congress to lose their deposit in what was once their stronghold… Like Arun Ji [Sao, State BJP president] said [in his address] that my arrival is an indication of us handing them a similar defeat [for the Congress in next year’s Assembly polls]. So, Arun ji, it’s A for Amethi, B for Bilaspur, and C for Chhattisgarh,” said Ms. Irani.
She proceeded to launch an attack on Congress, especially cornering it on the issue of women’s safety. She claimed that 6,000 women had been raped since Mr. Baghel took over in 2018 and the police do not register cases till the victims’ resort to an extreme step such as dying by suicide.
‘Look at your record’
Earlier, Mr. Baghel questioned the BJP rally that focussed on women safety or the alleged lack of it in the State. Talking to presspersons, 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 he was voted in.
“She should speak on tragic incidents like Jhaliyamari scandal (incident of sexual assault on 15 minor inmates of a residential school for tribal girls in Kanker district in 2013), death of women after sterilisation, botched cataract surgeries, uterus removal cases, all of which happened during the previous Raman Singh-led government,” he said, adding that the Central Minister should look at the graph of crimes against women where the BJP rules under Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath.
He also questioned the Centre on suspension of train services in Chhattisgarh. “Smriti Irani ji should say why train services are suspended (in Chhattisgarh). Do women not travel by trains? Women mostly prefer this mode of transport. It is convenient and cheap. They (BJP-led Centre) have kept it suspended,” he said.
Published - November 12, 2022 06:02 am IST
