Don’t impose your sexism on me; PM had no guts to defend himself: Rahul Gandhi hits back

Agencies
January 13, 2019

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi has stood by his remark he made against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for using Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to defend the former, saying that he would have made “a very similar comment if it had been a man”.

Addressing a press conference in Dubai, Rahul maintained that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have defended himself in the Lok Sabha over the Rafale fighter jet deal.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi has helped Anil Ambani steal Rs 30,000 crore and the House of the people Lok Sabha is where he should have defended himself but he chose to send another person and that person happened to be a woman,” the Congress chief said.

"I would have made a very similar comment if it had been a man. Do not impose your sexism on me. I am very clear that the Prime Minister should have delivered that defence but he did not have the guts," Gandhi further said.

He said the Congress has not yet got the answer whether Defence Ministry officials objected to the Prime Minister "bypassing" the Rafale deal.

Nirmala Sitharaman had spoken on behalf of PM Modi and defended the Rafale deal in the Lok Sabha, countering questions raised by Congress and other opposition parties.

A huge row erupted after Rahul Gandhi while addressing a rally in Jaipur on Wednesday, said that PM Modi had got a woman to defend him in Parliament on the Rafale fighter jet deal.

"The watchman with a 56-inch chest ran away and told a woman, (Nirmala) Sitharamanji, defend me. I won't be able to defend myself, defend me. For two and a half hours, the woman could not defend him. I had asked a straight question - answer yes or no - but she couldn't answer," he had said.

His comments drew sharp criticism from the BJP with Union Minister Sushma Swaraj accusing him of marking a "new low" in Indian politics. Smriti Irani followed with a tweet with the hashtag “Misogynist Rahul”.

PM Modi also slammed Rahul and accused him of insulting "India's first woman defence minister". "For the first time, a daughter of the country has become defence minister. Our defence minister silenced all the opposition parties in parliament (on Rafale) and exposed their lies. They were so stunned that now they are insulting a woman defence minister. They are insulting India's women power," the Prime Minister said at a rally in Agra.

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News Network
March 13,2020

New Delhi, Mar 13: Delhi's Tis Hazari Court on Friday sentenced expelled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar and six others to 10 years imprisonment for the death of Unnao rape survivor's father. Sengar is already serving life imprisonment for raping the minor.

While sentencing them, District Judge Dharmesh Sharma said, "There can be no denying that rule of law was broken. Sengar was a public functionary and had to maintain the rule of law. The way the crime has been committed, it does not call for leniency."

Sengar and his brother Atul has been directed to give 10 lakh compensation to family of the victim for loss of their father. "There are four minor children involved, three girls and one boy. They have also been uprooted from native place," the judge said.

Seven people, including Sengar, his brother and two police personnel, were held guilty for culpable homicide and criminal conspiracy, earlier this month.

The case pertains to the death of rape survivor's father in custody on April 9, 2018. It was alleged that he was assaulted following a quarrel with some of the accused in the case.

He was taken to the police station and then framed for allegedly possessing an illegal firearm. Pursuant to this, he was sent to custodial remand, during which he died.

The case was transferred to Delhi from a trial court in Uttar Pradesh on the Supreme Court's directions in August last year. Both the death and illegal firearm case was later clubbed by the court.

During the arguments on sentencing on March 12, Sengar had told the court that he should be "hanged and acid poured into his eyes if he has done anything wrong".

The former MLA had also raped the daughter of the deceased in 2017 in Uttar Pradesh's Unnao district and was sent to jail for "remainder of his natural biological life", last year.

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News Network
June 30,2020

New Delhi, Jun 30: Amid calls for boycotting Chinese products after India-China face-off in eastern Ladakh, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government claiming that imports from China have increased under the NDA regime.

"Facts don't lie. BJP says: Make in India. BJP does: Buy from China," Gandhi tweeted along with a graphic of the percentage of imports from China during the UPA rule and the NDA government.

The graphic claims that imports from China were at 12-13 per cent when the Congress-led UPA government vacated office in 2014 but now stood at 17-18 per cent in 2020.

The Congress leader has been vehemently targeting the Centre on the India-China border situation after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in violent face-off with Chinese troops in Ladakh's Galwan valley earlier this month.

Indian intercepts have revealed that the Chinese side suffered 43 casualties, including dead and seriously injured, in the face-off.

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Agencies
May 17,2020

New Delhi, May 17: With the highest-ever spike of close to 5,000 cases in the past 24 hours, the COVID-19 count in India has crossed 90,000 on Sunday.

With an increase of 4,987 COVID-19 cases being reported in the last 24 hours, the count has reached 90,927, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The total number of active cases in the country stands at 53,946 today, while 2,872 deaths have been recorded due to the infection so far, with one patient having migrated. 120 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

However, on the positive side, close to 4,000 patients have also been cured and discharged in the past 24 hours, taking the tally of cured patients to 34,108.

With 30,706 confirmed cases, Maharashtra remains the worst-affected by the infection in the country.

It is followed by Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, with 10,988 and 10,585 cases, respectively.
The national capital, with 9,333 cases, is also one of the regions which is badly affected by the infection.

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