New Delhi: Amid the raging controversy in Karnataka over wearing of hijab at educational institutions, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) General Secretary CT Ravi said an individual is free to wear any dress of her choice outside schools but inside the premises, the students have to don the school uniform.
Taking a jibe at Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi, Ravi said that although Gandhi said, women can even wear a bikini inside the school, students can’t go to educational institutes wearing such attire. It’s not right to play politics in schools, he added.
His comments come a day after the Congress leader said that it is a woman's right to decide what she wants to wear. The right has been guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. A woman can choose to wear a bikini, a ghoonghat, a pair of jeans or a hijab, Gandhi had said.
Gandhi linked the issue with the Congress's poll slogan of women empowerment in Uttar Pradesh 'Ladki hoon lad sakti hoon'.
Earlier, the BJP leader had courted controversy with his statement that the girls must stop going to school if they couldn’t follow the school rules.
“Today, THEY will ask permission to attend school wearing Hijab. Tomorrow, THEY will demand Sharia Law. ONE SCHOOL, ONE UNIFORM. If you are not following the school rules, stop going to school. Schools are not your personal space that you can wear whatever you want," the BJP leader had tweeted.
The ongoing row can be traced back to the beginning of January when some students in Udupi and Chikkamagaluru started wearing hijab to schools as a mark of protest after some of them were not allowed to enter the classroom for wearing the headscarves.