BJP roasts Rahul Gandhi over rape remarks in Parliament

The BJP on Friday stalled both Houses of Parliament over Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Rape in India’ remarks at an election rally in Jharkhand, with Union Minister Smriti Irani accusing the Congress leader of “giving a clarion call to rape Indian women”.

BJP members led vociferous protests in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, forcing repeated adjournments in both the Houses on the last day of Winter Session with demands for apology by the former Congress president.

Soon after Speaker Om Birla made obituary references, junior minister for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal said a number of women members from the BJP had given adjournment notices against Rahul’s remarks at a rally in Jharkhand — that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised Make in India but “wherever you see now you find Rape in India”.

Irani, who had defeated Rahul to win the Amethi Lok Sabha seat, launched a fierce attack, accusing the “son of the Gandhi family” of saying “come and rape women in India. Is this his message to the people of the country? He should be punished”.

BJP member Locket Chatterjee claimed that Rahul had insulted not only women but everyone in the country. “All men are not rapists,” she said.

Faced with an all-women attack, DMK member Kanimozhi rose to Rahul’s defence and questioned the record of the government in dealing with crime against women.

“We respect the PM’s Make in India initiative. We want economy to grow. Unfortunately, Make in India is not happening and women in the country are being raped. That is what Rahul Gandhi intended to say,” Kanimozhi said.

Smriti Irani termed Kanimozhi’s defence of Rahul “disgusting” and said she did not expect a woman member to defend the Congress leader.

Rahul, who could not speak in the Lok Sabha, lashed out at Modi and rejected demands for an apology. “I will not apologise. Let me clarify what I said. I said the prime minister keeps talking about Make In India. So when one opens the newspaper one hopes that one will see news about it, but we see so many cases of rape,” he told reporters outside Parliament.

Launching a counter-attack, Rahul also played out an old clip of Modi on the campaign trail during which he had called Delhi the “rape capital”. The Congress leader accused Modi of diverting focus from violence in northeastern states over amendments to the Citizenship Act.