A day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray asked Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to call for a Parliament session to discuss atrocities against women , the Congress extended support to Mr. Thackeray’s demand, while the women MLAs of the BJP wrote to him condemning his letter to the Governor.
The State unit of the Congress on Wednesday pointed to the numbers from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2020, saying the BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh was at the forefront in atrocities against women along with the BJP-ruled Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka.
“Assam has the highest number of atrocities against women at 154/lakh. Uttar Pradesh is ahead in gangrape/murder cases. Under the previous Fadnavis govt, Maharashtra was number 1 in gangrape and murder cases in 2019,” said State Congress general secretary Sachin Sawant.
Mr. Thackeray’s demand to call for a Parliament session was just, he remarked. The Fadnavis government was a dark era for women, he alleged. He listed out cases of crime against women during that government- 31,216 (2015), 31388 (2016), 31,978 (2017), 35,497 (2018) and 37,144 (2019). “Cases were decreased to 31,954 by 2020 after the MVA government came to power,” he claimed.
Earlier, irked over Mr. Thackeray’s letter to Mr. Koshyari, the BJP's women MLAs said in their letter that the Chief Minister cannot duck the responsibility on women’s safety by pointing the finger at the Centre. "You have made fun of the pains of victim women by replying to the Governor. We warn you that you cannot duck the responsibility of such instances by pointing the finger at the Centre. We expect that you will take a due note of this and stop half-hearted support of the anarchy in the State,” their letter stated.
It asked Mr. Thackeray to not compare atrocities against women in Maharashtra with that of other States. “Instead of asking the Central government to call for a Parliament session only to expose the abysmal record of Maharashtra, we expect that you will come out with a concrete action,” it added.
