UP nun harassment case: Congress portrays Sangh Parivar as anti-women

Rahul Gandhi said he will no longer address the RSS and organisations attached with it as 'Sangh Parivar'

Latching on to the incident of the alleged harassment of nuns belonging to a Kerala-based congregation in an express train in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Congress on Thursday sought to project the incident to portray the Sangh Parivar as anti-women.

Tweeting in Hindi, Rahul Gandhi, an MP from Wayanad in poll-bound Kerala, said he will no longer address the RSS and organisations attached with it as 'Sangh Parivar' as the organisation is devoid of the attributes of a family.

"I am of the view that it is not right to call the RSS organizations attached to it as Sangh Parivar. There are women in the family, there is respect for the elderly, a feeling of compassion and love-- which is not there in the RSS. Now I will not call RSS 'Sangh Parivar'!" the Congress leader said.

Read | Will no longer call RSS 'Sangh Parivar', it’s a misnomer: Rahul Gandhi

A day before Gandhi had the RSS family over the attack on nuns in UP saying it a “result of the vicious propaganda run by the Sangh Parivar to pitch one community against another and trample the minorities.”

Time for us as a nation to introspect and take corrective steps to defeat such divisive forces, Gandhi had said.

Rahul Gandhi had earlier also spared no occasion to berate the BJP-RSS on women issues and tried to create a Congress versus RSS-BJP binary on the issue of women empowerment.

After incidents of alleged rapes in some shelter homes in Bihar and UP in 2018, Gandhi had questioned the “silence” of the Prime Minister and also called RSS a “male chauvinist organisation" that does not have women in it. Gandhi’s remarks asking “Have you ever seen women in shorts working with RSS” had in fact led to sharp reactions from the BJP.

In February 2020, when the Supreme Court’s landmark judgement had come favouring permanent commission to women in Armed forces, Congress had accused Modi government of having a “myopic thinking” and pushing “backward 17th century arguments” before the apex court on the issue of giving combat role to women in the Armed Forces.

In the judgment then, the apex court had then rejected the Centre's stand of their physiological limitations as being based on "sex stereotypes" and "gender discrimination against women".

Indicating that Congress is keen on trying to put the BJP on the mat on women issue latching on to the nun incident in the background of elections in two South Indian states---Kerala and Tamil Nadu AICC spokesperson Randeep Surjewala also went hammer and tongs.

“BJP goons attack #Kerala ‘Nun’, #SriLankan Navy detains 20 Tamil fishermen, Yet.... Modi Govt remains oblivious.....! Why? Because People of the two States have rejected the BJP,’ he said.

Another Congress MP Shashi Tharoor went on to say “ Kerala nuns attacked by Bajrang Dal men in Jhansi: had our society been as vigilant in acting against those who commit real crimes against women as these zealots are in harassing them, we’d have a safer nation. But protecting women isn’t on the BJP agenda”.

Home Minister Amit Shah has already assured action against the culprits of the nun harassment case. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had also taken up the issue with the Centre.