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Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today said every woman is an asset to this country and if the India has to become superpower, women empowerment is the only way to it.
He was addressing ‘Mahila Choupal’ – women’s group from all across the country to seek their suggestions and opinions to be incorporated in party’s manifesto for the forthcoming general elections.
Before revealing his two-pronged idea, he opened the discussion on an interesting note and said, "Let me tell you in my house there was apapa (father), a chacha (father's younger brother) but the boss of the house was always my dadi."
He was referring to former Prime Minister late Mrs Indira Gandhi, who was his grandmother. On this note he clarified, “Our women don't need anyone's protection but they need their rights and a place."
He later said there are only two ideas for betterment of the country was to open up opportunities for women, empower them and also empower every single person of this country and use his power for further development.
He also echoed a demand from a “differently-abled’’ participant that why “disabled” people should have reservations in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabhas (state legislative assemblies). “India cannot become superpower without empowering women,” he reiterated and said, “We need to be aggressive and making sure those women should be empowered in the country.”
Rahul promised he would do whatever possible in his capacity as party vice president to empower women. He also promised that his party would gather inputs from various sections of society to ensure that party would incorporate all valuable suggestions in the manifesto for the general elections which are slated to take place in May this year.
Participating women demanded ease in cooking gas, more protection, better law and order and no further hollow promises. Rahul however clarified, when a participant from Gujarat sprayed a comment on him that for the last 25 years nothing has been done and his party is just making false promise, “It is not fair to say that nothing has been done, women have now 50% reservations in Panchayat, a bill to ensure 33% reservation to women is pending in Parliament and schemes like MNREGA have ensured equal rights for women and men.”
