NEW DELHI: The Congress has always insulted the country's brave and courageous as well as their families, the BJP alleged on Friday hours after the Rajasthan Police removed the widows of three CRPF jawans killed in the 2019 Pulwama terror attack from a protest site in Jaipur.
The widows were protesting since February 28, and had launched an indefinite hunger strike six days ago outside Congress leader and former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot's house, demanding a change in rules so that their relatives and not just children can get government jobs on compassionate grounds.
Their other demands included construction of roads and installation of statues of the jawans in their villages.
The widows were removed in the early hours of Friday and shifted to hospitals near their respective residential areas, while their supporters were taken to a police station in Jaipur, according to police.
The widows were released after being detained briefly.
Meanwhile, Rajasthan police on Friday detained BJP MP Kirodi Lal Meena who was part of their protest. Meena's supporters who were along with him have been detained, too. Videos on social media show the BJP leader lying in a hospital and looking visibly injured.
Meena has accused the police of "trying to kill him".
Hitting out at the Congress government in the state, BJP MP and former Union minister Rajyavardhan Rathore at a press conference in Delhi accused it of making false promises and insulting the country's heroes while practising politics of appeasement.
Rathore said, "The Congress has always despised the army and 'veerangana' (brave women). Rahul Gandhi did the same in the case of the surgical strikes, Galwan valley, and now the Rajasthan Congress government is doing the same."
The Congress mindset is of insulting "martyrs" and their families, he alleged at the press conference at the BJP headquarters.
"The (Rajasthan) chief minister (Ashok Gehlot) is refusing to meet the families. There was a lathicharge on the widows, what is the fear of the chief minister in meeting these widows and their families. More than 400 schemes are in the name of the Gandhi family but the statue of a martyr cannot be installed?" Rathore said.
On Thursday, Gehlot had accused state BJP leaders of "using the widows of the martyrs for their narrow political interests and thus, dishonouring them", while on the demonstrators' demands he had asked if it would be "appropriate" to give jobs to other relatives of the martyred jawans instead of their children.
Following the police action, BJP MP Kirodi Lal Meena, who was supporting the protest by the widows, while speaking to reporters in Jaipur, asked, "Why is the government so afraid of three women warriors that the police picked them up overnight. The women were only pleading to meet the Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot ji. Why is the chief minister so nervous to hear them?" he said.
The police action happened around 3 am when Meena had gone to his residence, one of his close aides said.
(With inputs from ANI, Online desk)