Reaching out to women voters ahead of the 2014 elections, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi held a ‘chai pe charcha’ programme to engage with people gathered at 1,500 locations across the country.Talking to women on the occasion of International Women’s Day, Modi, at a specially set up stall at the BJP’s headquarterse, talked about women empowerment and work done by his government for the betterment of fairer sex in Gujarat. “Economic freedom is a very important part of women empowerment. They must be partners in economic development,” he said.
Answering a question about women safety, Modi castigated the UPA government.“The Centre set up Rs 1,000 crore Nirbhaya Fund. Not a single penny has been spent. I even read that a call centre for women safety was shut down as people weren’t paid. This is a very non-sensitive attitude towards solving the issue,” he said. When asked about his personal contribution to the cause of women, the Gujarat strongman said he was very concerned about the state of girl children’s education in his home state when he became the Chief Minister.
“I deposited all the gifts received in the past 12 years in the government treasury and auctioned them.”
Modi, who was joined by eminent personalities such as former IPS officer Kiran Bedi and cricketer Anjum Chopra, said: “Economic freedom is an important part of women empowerment.”