New Delhi: Launching a frontal attack on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday alleged the Congress general secretary, who boasts of fighting for the women, had time to meet the kin of Unnao rape victim but did not visit the Alwar rape victim as she was busy celebrating her birthday in Rajasthan’s Ranthambore.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said Priyanka Gandhi was in Ranthambore celebrating her birthday with husband Robert Vadra when this incident took place in Alwar.
“A BJP MP accompanied by a team of senior workers went to hold talks with Priyanka Vadra on this matter. But our team was sent back saying that Priyanka Vadra is busy celebrating her birthday and she cannot meet anyone,” Patra told a press conference here.
“The team went to ask her for a report from the Rajasthan Chief Minister and why such incidents are taking place in the state,” he added.
Continuing his diatribe, the BJP leader said both Priyanka Gandhi and her brother Rahul Gandhi visit states where the Congress is not in power whenever such incidents take place and get photographed.
“Did you (Priyanka Gandhi) meet the victim? Did you go to that victim’s house? Did she ask Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for a report in this regard? You say in Uttar Pradesh that I am a girl and I can fight. But there is this atmosphere in Rajasthan that I am a girl and fighting is forbidden,” he said.
Charging the Congress with playing politics on this grave issue, Patra said the nation will never forgive them for such acts.
The BJP leader also used the occasion to take potshots at Rajasthan Women and Child Development Minister Mamta Bhupesh for her remarks that the state government alone cannot stop such incidents and for “mixing tilak with rape”.
Accusing the Rajasthan government of escaping from responsibility, Patra said both the Women and Child Development Minister as well as Chief Minister Gehlot should apologize for this.
Bhupesh had earlier said that a collective resolve is needed in the society to stop such incidents.
“The government alone can’t stop such incidents. A collective resolve is needed in the society. Such persons don't come from outside. ‘Darindon ko koi tilak nahi laga hai’,” she said on the Alwar rape case, ANI reported.
In yet another case of Nirbhaya-like brutality, a 16-year-old girl was gang-raped in Rajasthan’s Alwar district.
The mentally-challenged girl was found in a distressed state with injuries on her private parts in Alwar earlier on Tuesday.
The minor, spotted on a road near Tijara Fatak in a pool of blood at around 9 p.m. on Tuesday, is recuperating at Jaipur’s JK Lone Hospital where she had to undergo a surgery on Wednesday.
No arrests have so far been made in connection with this untoward incident.