Sushma urges women in Gujarat to take max benefit of govt schemes

Union External Affairs Minister and senior Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushma Swaraj on Saturday urged women in Gujarat to take advantage of multiple states and Central government schemes to seek employment and take forward their entrepreneurship ventures.

"There are 142 women-specific schemes in Gujarat. They are all for the welfare and empowerment of women. I would appeal to you to understand these schemes and take advantage of government efforts to suit your requirements,” Swaraj said while speaking at first women townhall organised by BJP in the poll-bound state. “The state has allocated a budget of over Rs 3600 crore for women welfare schemes," she added.

BJP claimed that other than social media platforms, over 100,000 women from 32 different locations, including far-off places as Navsari in South Gujarat, Banaskantha in North Gujarat, Rajkot and Surendranagar in Saurashtra, connected at townhall through video conferencing.

Swaraj hit out at Congress for allegations that women do not get to play a key role in BJP, stating that the party had given four women chief ministers and six Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government were women, including holding defence portfolio. “Prior to our government, no woman made it as a member to CCS. Now we have two," she said.

Taking a dig at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s recent comments of women not being seen at RSS shakhas in shorts, she said that it does not augur well for a leader who is touted to take over as president of leading political party. “If he had asked why are women not allowed in RSS then I would have given him a logical answer but his question is vulgar and it does not deserve an answer,” she said.

Talking about her role as an external affairs minister, she said that she has helped rescue 88,302 Indians stranded in troubled regions outside of India and that personal relations Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been able to forge with several world leaders during his foreign visits had helped make it easy to rescue Indians from some of the worst troubled regions as Yemen.

"As many as 48 nations sought our help to rescue their citizens. Apart from 3500 Indians, we also helped rescue over 1900 other nationals. This was possible as Modiji had developed friendly relations with Saudi Crown Prince who agreed to a cease-fire in war-torn nation for two hours every day," Swaraj said.