After meeting the parents of a nine-year-old Dalit girl who died after reportedly being raped, Union Minister Anurag Thakur questioned Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “silence” on rape occurrences in states governed by his party.
At a Cabinet briefing, the Minister of Information and Broadcasting was responding to a question on Gandhi’s visit.
Mr. Thakur refused to comment on “who traveled to Delhi to see the victim’s relatives or if it was for political purposes.”
He said when such rape incidents happen in many Congress-ruled states, some politicians like Rahul Gandhi have remained silent.
“It is unfortunate that they choose to see rapes and deaths of girls in those states where they are not in power and not in the states like Punjab and Rajasthan, where they have their governments,” Mr Thakur told reporters.
“I feel that the law should ensure speedy justice to girls, be it from poor, rich or backward communities, and for this, the Modi government has made laws,” he said.
The minister was alluding to the cabinet’s decision to keep over 1023 fast-track special courts open in order to ensure that rape victims receive prompt justice.
On the issue of law and order, opposition parties have criticized Home Minister Amit Shah.
The BJP, on the other hand, accused Rahul Gandhi of “furthering” his political goal by using the issue, and said that the law and order apparatus had moved quickly to give justice to the victim’s family.
At a press conference, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said his party had no problem with Mr Gandhi visiting the girl’s family earlier and calling for justice, but that the Gandhi family’s “selectivism” was condemnable because they never tweeted or said anything in cases of atrocities against Dalit girls in Congress-ruled states like Rajasthan, Punjab, and Chhattisgarh.
