Express News Service By

NEW DELHI: Scores of queer rights activists on Sunday evening took to the streets of the national capital chanting the slogan hum leke rahenge azaadi and demanding the decriminalisation of gay sex.

While celebrating the gains India’s LGBT community has made in recent years, the annual Delhi Queer Pride Parade demanded the repeal of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalises homosexual acts.

Lending them support, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor later tweeted that he would introduce a private member’s bill in Parliament to decriminalise consensual sex between adults of any gender. “Hope it will be admitted4discn,” he tweeted. He also revealed that he had submitted the bill 10 days ago.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on Saturday said the Supreme Court shouldn’t have reversed the Delhi HC order decriminalising gay sex. “When you have millions of people involved in this (homosexuality) you can’t nudge them off... the verdict banning gay sex is not in accordance with evolving legal jurisprudence,” he said.