Smriti asks Rahul to back women’s quota law

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary Smriti Irani on Sunday asked Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi to validate his words on supporting women by backing the implementation of the 33% reservation for them in legislatures.HT ImageThe remarks came a day after the Congress leader, at the Pune leg of his “Chhatron Ki Goonj” campaign on Saturday, described women as the “strength of India” and urged them to fight for their space and stand up against patriarchal norms. Interacting with girl students at the event, Gandhi urged them to “smash patriarchy” and lashed out at “Manusmriti mindset”, claiming that it forces a woman to remain under the authority of male relatives at every stage of her life.Irani said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had brought in the law granting 33% reservation for women “across the country” to strengthen their place in Parliament, and had appealed to all parties to cooperate on its swift rollout.“Rahul Gandhi has said at an event that he supports women. I humbly ask him to support the Prime Minister’s initiative, specifically the swift implementation of the law providing 33% reservation for women and enabling them to take on leadership roles in Parliament,” she said.Irani then turned to comments on Hindu religious references made at that same Pune event. “Remarks regarding the Hindu religion were made at that Congress leader’s event yesterday,” she said, adding that since he had “invoked religion,” she had “one further request” for him.She linked this to the ongoing dispute over Vande Mataram’s rendition at the Congress headquarters. “The lines of Vande Mataram that were halted at the Congress headquarters actually contain a reference to Goddess Durga,” Irani said, describing the goddess as an embodiment of “Shakti,” and said a full rendition at the party’s headquarters “would reflect the interest and inclination” Congress has shown towards women’s issues. Doing so, alongside backing the reservation law, she said, would let Gandhi “give shape to his words” on women’s empowerment.The Vande Mataram row erupted after visuals from the Congress headquarters’ Independence Day event showed party president Mallikarjun Kharge and parliamentary chairperson Sonia Gandhi conversing while the national song played, which the BJP said amounted to disrespect and demanded an apology for. Following the controversy, Congress general secretary KC Venugopal said after a Congress Working Committee meeting that the party would continue reciting only the first two stanzas at its programmes, citing a 1937 resolution associated with Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.Irani is not the only BJP leader to have raised the issue recently. She had earlier this week accused Congress of insulting the national song, while Union minister Rajnath Singh separately called the party’s Vande Mataram stand “unconstitutional,” tracing it to the same 1937 resolution.Congress has so far responded to the wider Vande Mataram controversy rather than to Irani’s specific remarks. Venugopal said after the CWC meeting there was “no confusion” over the party’s position and that it would abide by the 1937 decision. “Vande Mataram and the National Anthem are emotional things for the Congress party. But it is political for the BJP. This is the difference between them and us,” he said, calling the row over the Independence Day visuals a “communication gap.”Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, who has previously accused the BJP of using Vande Mataram debates to discredit Jawaharlal Nehru, has also questioned the government’s intent on the reservation law’s timeline, while party MP Vivek Tankha alleged the BJP “never had any intention of providing reservation to women” and would delay its rollout until after the next Census and delimitation exercise.The exchange adds to a running BJP-Congress confrontation over nationalism-linked symbolism that has played out alongside separate disputes this month over the pellet gun row, the caste census and delimitation.