BJP politicising visits to Delhi rape victim’s family: Sena
MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena on Sunday said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) terming Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the family of the minor Dalit girl, who was allegedly raped and killed by a priest and three employees of a crematorium in Delhi, a sham, reeked of double standards, as BJP had brought the Parliament to a standstill over Nirbhaya rape and murder case when it was in the Opposition in 2012-2013. Sena’s Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Raut, in his weekly column ‘Rokthok’ in party mouthpiece Saamana, said it was the BJP which was politicising visits to the victim’s family and was not being sensitive towards rape victims.
“A nine-year-old girl was raped and then brutally killed. Many leaders like Rahul Gandhi visited the victim’s family. The BJP does not approve of the meetings and calls it a sham. A few years ago BJP, [then] as an Opposition party, launched an agitation across the country after the Nirbhaya case and paralysed the Parliament holding the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government responsible. However, today, after nine years, when they are in power, they are shrugging off their responsibility by undermining the incident,” Raut said, reminding that the Bjp-led Central government was responsible for law and order in Delhi.
BJP legislator Ram Kadam questioned whether the Sena has the moral right to raise this question. “Our Central leadership has condemned the incident and promised stringent action against the accused, but here we saw the Sena minister in the dock over abetting a suicide of a woman. The Sena did everything to save him and he had to resign only after the Opposition launched massive agitation against him. The Sena should introspect whether it has a right to talk about atrocities against women,” said Kadam.
He was referring to former Sena minister Sanjay Rathod who had to resign in February after he was accused of allegedly abetting suicide of an aspiring model.