assembly-elections

Updated: Jul 10, 2020 16:41 IST

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s comments against Sonia Gandhi drew sharp criticism from the Congress on Monday which said that the BJP leader was a serial offender.

Khattar, at a poll rally in Sonipat on Sunday, had targeted Congress for choosing Sonia Gandhi as its president after a three-month search. He used the Hindi proverb “khoda pahad nikli chuhiya” to attack the Congress and its chief.

Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev sought an unconditional apology from Khattar while Haryana Congress chief Kumari Selja said the CM’s attitude against women is why the state has the misnomer of being the “crime capital” of India.

Selja said that while it is not new for Khattar to make such derogatory comments against women. “This is not new for you CM Khattar to make disrespectful comments against women. And by making these comments against Congress president Sonia Gandhi you have insulted all women. Look within yourself, it is this attitude that has led to people calling Haryana the crime capital of India,” Selja has said in a video statement.

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Dev said that the BJP is using such comments to divert the attention of people from the real issues.

“His (Khattar’s) remarks against the Congress president are deplorable and unparliamentary, it is a clear reflection of his and the BJP’s disrespectful attitude towards women. Lowering the discourse is an attempt to divert attention from the real issues such as joblessness and acute economic slowdown,” Dev said in a statement.

Congress said the Khattar government has no solutions for the real issues faced by women. “ML Khattar of the beti bachao gang has failed as Haryana has the 4th highest crime rate in the country, there is a shocking shortfall in police manpower. At 27%, the shortfall is highest among the northern states, and almost 4 times as high as the deficit in Punjab (sic),” Dev said.

In an election rally on Sunday, Khattar had said that it was much ado for nothing when the Congress had declared Sonia Gandhi as president.

“After the defeat in the Lok Sabha election, Rahul (Gandhi) quit as the president and said Congress’s president will not be from the Gandhi family. Everyone welcomed this; as it signalled an end to dynasty politics. It was like khoda pahaad, nikli chuhiya, woh bhi mari hui... (dig up an entire mountain, only to find a mouse, and a dead one at that),” Khattar had said.

The Delhi unit of the Mahila Congress will carry out a protest march to Delhi BJP office on Monday against Khattar’s remarks.

Khattar had courted controversy a few months ago when he said the government’s move to revoke Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir will clear the path for men in Haryana to marry Kashmiri girls.