After the Congress, Trinamul and CPI(M) defended shocking remarks by their leaders, it’s now the BJP’s turn to defend RSS boss Mohan Bhagwat, who blamed women for sexual attacks against them. The Congress and Left, who had been on the backfoot over their legislators’ shocking remarks against women, pounced on the opportunity and tore into the saffron brigade on Friday.
Mr Bhagwat said: “You go to villages and forests of the country and there will be no such incidents of gangrape or sex crimes. They are prevalent in some urban belts. Rapes are in India and not in Bharat.”
Not to be left behind, a BJP minister in Madhya Pradesh, Mr Kailash Vijayvargiya, who on an earlier occasion had said “women’s safety depends on what they wear”, on Friday said a woman should remain within her “Laxman rekha (limit)” or else they would be punished.
A red-faced BJP publicly censured Mr Vijayvargiya but tried desperately to defend the RSS chief, saying he had been “misunderstood”.
The BJP also claimed that empowerment of women, and giving them respect and security, “form the core of RSS ideology”.