india

Updated: Mar 09, 2020 08:59 IST

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Bengal unit president courted a controversy on International Women’s Day by saying that women are being made to protest under the influence of drugs.

“Destructive protests are going on over the past few days. Women are being made to protest under the influence of drugs and are shouting throughout the day. This indicates that they have forgotten culture, can’t differentiate between right and wrong and have lost their sense of decency,” said Dilip Ghosh.

He was answering some questions posed to him by mediapersons in Kolkata on Sunday on Friday’s Rabindra Bharati University (RBU) controversy.

“We all need to think where our society is heading. If these women behave like this on the roads, how will the people behave with them? They will become victims of crime,” he said.

Ghosh added that he was not blaming anybody, and that it was a deterioration of the society.

“The indecent manner in which young women are behaving and campaigning is very unfortunate. I am not blaming anyone. It is a deterioration of the society,” he added.

Senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and state urban development minister Firhad Hakim lashed out saying that Ghosh has insulted the women of Bengal on International Women’s Day.

“He has insulted women of Bengal on International Women’s Day. He should be boycotted by the society. He should not insult women because of a stray incident. I don’t know whether he is under the influence of drugs,” said Hakim.

Pictures of some men and women, who came to attend the spring festival at RBU, went viral on social media on Friday. In one photograph four women in yellow sarees were seen standing side by side with each of them showing one word from a line from a Tagore song written on the back. The original words were, however, replaced with obscene ones.