Congress general secretary Gurudas Kamat will reply to a notice from the National Commission for Women (NCW) on his remarks allegedly demeaning Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani during the campaign for the local body polls in Rajasthan.
He told The Hindu on Sunday that he had not received the notice yet. He maintained that he had not said anything about Ms. Irani which she herself had not revealed in interviews in the past few years.
“I said in my speeches that Ms. Irani was from my constituency, Versova in Mumbai, and before she got a break in television soaps, she used to work in the fast-food chain McDonald’s … What wasn’t shown in various video clips doing the rounds is that I added there is nothing wrong with that or the fact that we know little about her educational qualifications, but to make her education minister reflected the arrogance of the government,” he said.
He denied calling Ms. Irani a domestic help. “I haven’t received the notice, but I shall be replying to it, along with a caveat for [NCW chief] Lalitha Kumaramangalam whether she has been as prompt in serving notice in cases that involved the BJP.”
‘Congress attacked Vasundhara, Sushma too during campaign’
Congress general secretary Gurudas Kamat, to whom the National Commission for Women (NCW) has sent a notice on his remarks allegedly demeaning Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, said on Sunday that the Congress had only been attacking the BJP during the campaigning for the local bodies elections in Rajasthan.
The campaign had been against not just Ms. Irani but also Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on the Lalit Modi issue. The elections are scheduled for August 17.
Mr. Kamat, who is in charge of party affairs in Rajasthan and Gujarat, said he had learnt about the notice from media reports and had not received it yet.
He had said that making Ms. Irani the education minister only showed the arrogance of the Narendra Modi government, which did not appear to care about the state of educational institutions.
