BJP launches welfare schemes for women, but remains mum over harassment charges

PoliticsBJP launches welfare schemes for women, but remains mum over harassment charges

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PM is popular among women voters, but will it work for a long time for the party?

Amit Bishnoi

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has begun to woo women voters for the next Lok Sabha election and assembly elections in different states.

But the top leaders of the party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have given a wide berth to Member of Parliament (MP) from UP, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh in their speeches.

The party has launched several welfare schemes for women in Madhya Pradesh as well as in other states. In MP, it has launched welfare schemes, like Ladli-Laxmi Yojna, Kanya Vivaha Yojna and Ladli-Behna Yojna.

It celebrated Ladli-Laxmi Utsav in the state on Tuesday. Under the Ladli-Laxmi scheme, a girl child is given financial aid to continue her studies. The scheme launched in 2007 has been a landmark project for the party.

Similarly, under Ladli-Behna Yojna, the government will give Rs 1,000 to every woman belonging to the lower-income group.

The BJP plans to organise a mass wedding under Kanya Vivaha Yojna on Wednesday. There are more than two crore women voters in MP. So, the party cannot ignore them. Besides the Prime Minister is popular among women voters.

According to sources, it is because of his popularity that the party’s vote share among women shot up by 16 per cent in 2019.

Nevertheless, party’s studied silence on female wrestlers’ demand for the arrest of Brij Bhushan Singh for sexually harassing female them has sparked controversies. And the Congress has termed BJP as anti-women party.

Although the party has launched many welfare schemes for women, there are reasons for it for not criticising or taking any action against Singh.

Singh is a strongman in UP and a six-term MP from different constituencies, like Gonda, Balrampur and Kaisarganj. He has many fan-following among Rajputs in two-three other adjoining constituencies.

He took part in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and was an accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case. Ergo, that makes Singh a very important leader in the BJP which cannot afford to enrage Rajputs by taking action against him before the local body polls to be held on May 4 and on May 11.

The main reason for the party not taking any action against Singh is that it is confident of creating a perception through media and its IT cell in its favour before an election and of winning it.

For that reason, the ruling party at the Centre never takes any action against its leaders and chooses to keep mum on any crime committed by them, ignoring public criticism.

This was the reason that the party ignored the Lakhimpur-Kheri incident in which protesting farmers were killed last year. Union minister’s son Ajay Mishra was involved in the incident. The government took action only after the court intervened, but the minister continued to enjoy the party’s support.

Similar thing happened in Haryana where a minister Sandeep Singh was accused of sexual harassment, but Chief Minister Khattar called the allegation absurd.

The party thinks that a popular prime minister can turn any adverse to its favour. Thus, it can afford to ignore such controversies, but is it going to help in the coming days?

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