NEW DELHI: The BJP on Monday trained guns on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in an attempt to corner him on the issue of triple talaq. With Rahul on the campaign trail in Gujarat, the BJP sought to claim that the Congress didn’t raise its voice to help Muslim women.
“We want to ask Rahul Gandhi, since he has been advocating reservation for women, what did his party do on the issue of triple talaq,” BJP national general secretary Bhupendra Yadav told reporters on Monday.
The BJP, incidentally, is hopeful that Muslim women would vote for the party in upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections since Prime Minister Narendra Modi supported them on the issue of triple talaq.
The BJP also sought to corner Rahul on the issue of reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) saying that the Congress had stalled the passage of the OBC Commission in an attempt to protect the quota of Muslim OBCs.
“Rahul Gandhi should tell why did his party obstruct the OBC Commission Bill in the Rajya Sabha? Why did the Congress betray the OBCs by doing politics on Muslim vote bank,” asked Yadav, who is also the BJP in-charge for Gujarat.
Incidentally, the BJP is banking strongly on the OBC Commission to win the support of the OBCs in Gujarat, who are numerically significant in an election, which has turned into a prestige issue for party chief Amit Shah.
Having been in power in the state for 22 years, the BJP is apparently faced with the challenge of countering the rise of Patidar, OBC and Dalit youth leaders in the state who are seen throwing their weight behind the Congress. Gujarat is heading for state polls in two phases on December 9 and 14, while the counting of votes will take place on December 18 along with Himachal Pradesh.