Kayamkulam: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday began her campaign for the April 6 Assembly polls in Kerala, by taking out a roadshow meandering through this ancient maritime trading town in Alappuzha district, seeking votes for the party candidate.
Seated atop a moving vehicle along with Aritha Babu, the Congress candidate from Kayamkulam, Priyanka clad in a yellow salwar kameez, waved to the jostling crowd of people lined up on both sides of the road and also shook hands with many enthusiastic voters.
Twenty-six-year-old Aritha is the youngest candidate in the poll arena in Kerala.
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Sitting CPI(M) MLA U Prathibha Hari is the LDF candidate in the constituency, while BJP has fielded Pradeep Lal.
Addressing a poll rally in Karunagapally, Priyanka slammed the BJP and RSS for the alleged harassment suffered by the Nuns belonging to a Kerala based congregation during a train journey in Uttar Pradesh and claimed that Home Minister Amit Shah had condemned it only because of assembly polls.
"It's election time. That's why when the sisters (nuns) were taken off a train in Jhansi and harassed by their people, the union minister made a comment saying it's wrong.
The rest of the time, they fully encouraged this sort of behaviour."
"Who gave the men of the BJP youth wing permission and authority to harass women on a train? Who gave them the right to check the identity papers of the Nuns and two girls with them.
Who allowed them to ask what their religion was? Are we to believe that in our country women cannot take a train without being harassed by someone and she is answerable to some goons about what she stands for and what she believes in?" she asked.
The Congress leader said she had spoken on the phone to the Nuns and they told her that they were worried.
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They were pulled out of the train, they were afraid and there was nobody to protect them, she said adding when the BJP and the RSS make "hollow" statements about protecting women, it's a "farce because they don't respect women".
Except during election time, when they want women's votes, they spend all their time telling women what to wear, how to dress, how to work, where to go and how to go there.
"Their ministers comment on women's jeans. One of their ministers said there should be a law that when women leave their districts, they should register with the police.
So that they will be safe as if women are not capable of looking after their safety," said Vadra, who is on a two-day tour of Kerala, where assembly polls are to be held on April 6.
Urging the women voters not to allow any politician to take them for granted, she said BJP does not respect a woman's identity.
"They will only call you mother, sister, daughter. They do not respect your identity as a woman. We are proud to be mothers, we are proud to be wives, we are proud to be sisters, daughters. But over and above it all, we are proud to be women. You are the strength of this country, you are the strength of Kerala, you are the strength of this society. You carry it on your shoulders."
Describing the BJP government at the Centre as "weak", Vadra said they cannot even tolerate a joke and get a comedian arrested even before he has lampooned them.
"They cannot tolerate dissent, argument. They cannot tolerate you standing up for yourself," she added.
(with agency inputs)
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