BJP spokesperson Anila Singh has ridiculed Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, general secretary of All India Congress Committee in charge of Uttar Pradesh, for promising 40% reservation for women and said that she must hold her promise not only in UP but also in parliamentary elections.
 
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Attacking Priyanka and the Congress, Singh said that her promises are empty words and the party has no organization on the ground.      

“As a woman, I appreciate and welcome what she has said. Why 40%? Priyanka should do 100% reservation for women. Just for the heck of promising 40% seats to women when you know it very well that you have no holding in UP are empty words,” she said.  

Singh was in a conversation with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now during the webcast of the Visionary Talk series held by the public policy and governance analysis platform.

Singh also said that the Congress party’s Uttar Pradesh results in 2014, 2017, and 2019 are self- explanatory and it has no organization on the ground. “The Congress can even promise a scooter or a car, but Priyanka must hold her promise not only for UP but even for other states as well as parliamentary elections.”
 
Singh added that the way former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh was shown the door by the Congress shows there is internal wrestling going on in the party in Punjab and it is in disarray.

Asked why, despite huge vaccination numbers in India, people were still talking about dead bodies flowing in the Ganga, she said when people all over the world have praised the UP government for the speed of the vaccination programme for its 25 crore population, the opposition and certain sections of media have projected that dead bodies were flowing in the Ganga, crematoriums were full and bodies wrapped in sheets were being buried near the Ganges.

She further asked if the coronavirus was only infecting Hindus and not Muslims and why only dead bodies of Hindus were being shown. “Were people from the Muslim community not dying? Were dead bodies not being cremated in cemeteries? Cameras should have turned there too. This was a conspiracy because elections were due in UP and because the Hindus who are a majority in UP and have shown their confidence in the Bharatiya Janata Party were being brainwashed that grave injustice was being meted out to them.

“Why is a community being divided on the name of religion? Why are you talking only about Hindu dead bodies? The cameras should have turned towards cemeteries too. Both sides of the picture should have been shown. This was an international conspiracy,” she said.

Responding to a question on the recent incidents of violence in Tripura and Amravati in Maharashtra and how social media can be regulated so that such incidents do not happen in future, she said it was clarified by Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Dev, deputy CM Jishnu Dev Verma, other ministers and also by the MHA that no mosque was demolished in Tripura. But in Maharashtra, a false narrative was spun that a mosque was burned and minorities were attacked and videos (clearly audible) with messages to destroy properties of Hindu community were circulated.

She attacked Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray for keeping quiet over the issue.

“In greed of power, Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray is sitting hand on hand and watching everything quietly,” she said.   

“Shiv Sena, which claimed to be a part of Hindus, today is sitting tight with a cloth tied around its eyes and mouth. Those who are supporting the party are playing the victim card placard and supported with a free reign by Shiv Sena.”

She asked why repercussions of Tripura are not being felt in Uttar Pradesh but instead happening in Maharashtra. This, she said, “shows that Uddhav Thackeray is a totally failed CM. He is not able to handle the situation. He is playing in the hands of Congress and NCP. Hindus have been intentionally attacked.”