Jaipur, February 17 A BJP MLA in Rajasthan sparked a political controversy during the Assembly debate on the state budget by comparing the BJP government's budget to the "birth of a boy" and that of the previous Congress regime to the "birth of a girl."
Participating in the debate on Monday evening, MLA Bahadur Singh Koli said, "Ours is a youth budget, theirs is an old-age budget...our government gave birth to a boy in the very first budget, and then again in the second and third budgets. The one who gives birth to a boy in their youth is always useful."
Targeting the previous Congress government, he added, "And when Ashok Gehlot was the CM, he made announcements in his last budget, but a girl child was born, not a boy child, and hence you're sitting in the Opposition."
The remarks triggered protests from Congress members on Tuesday. Leader of the Opposition Tika Ram Jully criticised the statement, calling it discriminatory and inappropriate.
Jully said, "On February 16, your MLA, while speaking on the budget, was making remarks that discriminate between a son and a daughter. Your MLAs were laughing. I feel ashamed that even today, such thinking persists. I, too, have two daughters; I have just married off one of them. And BJP MLAs still hold such views about daughters in this day and age."
Jully demanded that the ruling party clarify its stand and said such gender-based analogies had no place in a serious budget discussion.
Later, defending his statement, Koli told reporters, "What is wrong with this? It is our Brijbhasha." When asked whether he believed his remarks were inappropriate, he responded, "Kya bayan galat tha (How was the statement wrong)? I said a good budget has been tabled; that a chhora (boy) has been born."
He further said, "They tabled a populist budget ahead of elections to fool the public, which is like the birth of a girl child"