BJP highlights women empowerment schemes to counter Congress guarantees

BJP's Bharati Shetty said that PM Modi was instrumental behind PM Swanidhi, which enables small women entrepreneurs to avail of loans from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000, has helped women in the state.

Bengaluru: In a strong bid to blunt the impact of Congress party’s guarantee schemes, BJP election co-incharge Bharati Shetty on Thursday explained about how 10-year rule of PM Modi has helped empowering women across the country by taking revolutionary steps like scraping triple talaq, 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament, assemblies and local bodies and introducing death sentence to rape convicts among others.

Speaking to reporters, Shetty said that PM Modi was instrumental behind PM Swanidhi, which enables small women entrepreneurs to avail of loans from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000, has helped women in the state. “This might appear small but certainly a big sum for small-time vendors who otherwise had to turn towards private moneylenders to run their businesses. PM Modi’s vision was to safeguard women from falling into clutches of private moneylenders,” she explained.

She further added, “PM Modi’s initiative of releasing a staggering Rs 1,800 crore to women Stree Shakti groups has also proved to be a gamechanger like Mudra loan scheme in which nearly 61 per cent of beneficiaries are women entrepreneurs.” 

Highlighting that the paid maternity leave was increased from 12 weeks to 26 weeks, Bharati Shetty said that the PM Modi initiatives like constructing toilets in every house in the last 10 years has also improved the hygienic conditions of women across the country. “Financial aid to pregnant women under the Matruvandana scheme is also helping many women in the country to address pre-and-post delivery care in the country,” she stated.

Taking a dig at the Congress government over soaring crime rate in the state, Shetty alleged that under the Congress rule, robbery cases have gone up by 41 per cent while the murder cases have increased by 31 per cent in the state. “These numbers speak for themselves on the growing crime rate in the state after the Congress party came to power in the state.”

BJP vice-president Malvika Avinash charged that Karnataka has once again become a paradise for terrorists. “Congress party’s patronisation of a particular community has resulted in bomb blasts in Bengaluru. Besides, these anti-national elements have got unprecedented courage to raise pro-Pakistan slogans inside the Vidhana Soudha, but the Congress government is behaving as if nothing has happened in the state,” she said.