RAE BAREILI: After two SP MPs' remarks over the Centre's move to increase the legal age of marriage for girls stirred a controversy, party chief Akhilesh Yadav distanced himself from the statements, saying his outfit is progressive and the views expressed are personal.
The Union Cabinet had on Wednesday cleared a proposal to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years, bringing it on par with that of men.
Reacting to it, Samajwadi Party's Moradabad MP S T Hasan said girls should be married off as soon as they turn "mature and fertile" as the delay in marriage leads to "infertility".
"If a girl is mature, it is not wrong to marry her at 16. If she can cast vote at 18, why not marriage," he added.
Similarly, party's Sambhal MP Shafiqur Rehman Barq contended that the move will give girls a "chance to roam about freely" and things will "go wrong".
"The Samajwadi Party and its approach has always remained progressive. It could be their individual thinking and not the party line," Akhilesh said when asked to comment on the statements.
Yadav said his party gave laptops to most girls and daughters, made arrangement for their security with the help of technology.
"The SP cannot be with this kind of thinking. It can be their personal view," he said, adding that his party will work for the progress and honour of girls.
The SP MPs' statements also came in for criticism from the BJP, who said that it showed their "mentality" towards women.
State BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh tweeted,"People having Talibani mentality are very upset with the effective steps being taken by the Modi government for women empowerment. The ideology of the Samajwadi Party has always been anti-women, the statements of SP MPs are very shameful."
Minister of State in the UP government, Swati Singh, said it has exposed the real face of the Samajwadi Party.
This is not the first time that SP leaders have talked like this, she said, recalling how SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav had in 2014 said "ladko se galti ho jaati hai" (boys commit mistakes).
"Akhilesh Yadav had also said something of this kind when the Budaun rape case had taken place. The entire country is today seeing what the SP people are saying for half of the population," Swati Singh added.