‘Boy vs girl’ budget: Rajasthan BJP MLA’s sexist remark sparks row; he asks ‘what is wrong?’ | India News
New Delhi: A BJP MLA from Rajasthan has sparked a controversy during the assembly debate on the state budget after making gendered comparisons between the current BJP government’s budget and that of the previous Congress regime.Taking part in the debate on Monday evening, Wair MLA Bahadur Singh Koli described the BJP’s budget as a “youth budget” and the Congress’ “old age budget”. He also said that the BJP government “gave birth to a son” in its first budget and continued to do so in subsequent budgets, adding that “a son born in youth is always useful”.Targeting the previous Congress government, Kohli said that when Ashok Gehlot was chief minister, the announcements made in the last budget resulted in the birth of “a girl, not a boy” and claimed that this is why the Congress is now in the opposition, news agency PTI reported.The comments drew strong backlash from Congress members on Tuesday. Leader of Opposition Tika Ram Jolly criticized the statement calling it discriminatory and inappropriate.“On February 16, your MLA, while speaking the budget, made a discriminatory remark between a boy and a girl. Your MLAs were laughing. I feel ashamed that such thinking continues even today,” Julie said. Referring to her own family, she added that she has two daughters and questioned how such an opinion could be held “in this day and age”.Julie demanded that the ruling party clarify its position, saying gender-based equality had no place in serious discussions on the budget.Later defending his statement, Koli told reporters, “What’s wrong with that? It’s our Brajbhasha.” Asked if the statement was inappropriate, he said, “Kya bayan galat tha (How is the statement wrong)? I said a good budget was presented; that a chora (boy) was born.”He also claimed that the Congress presented “a populist budget before the elections to fool the people”, which he likened to “the birth of a girl child”.
