New Delhi: Shehzad Poonawalla may have quit the BJP, but he continues to train his guns on Congress MP and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.
In a fresh attack on the grand old party’s stance on women’s rights and alleged sexist remarks, he accused Rahul of endorsing “misogyny, sexism and patriarchy”.
By doing this, Poonawalla joined the BJP in pulling up the Congress leader for his “smash the patriarchy” call during his party’s ‘Chhatro ki Goonj’ programme in Pune.
“You pretty much endorsed misogyny, sexism and patriarchy when you & Sandeep Dikshit made that crass comment on Meloni. So cut the crap,” Poonawalla said in a scathing attack.
The BJP has also accused the Congress of always taking a stand against women’s right, citing a long list of instances which it deemed as anti-women. It said that the Congress opposed the Women’s Reservation Bill, the Triple Talaq Bill and Droupadi Murmu’s candidature for President, as reported by Hindustan Times.
While Congress leaders made abusive remarks against PM Modi’s late mother, senior leaders made misogynistic remarks against women, the BJP claimed.
While resigning from all posts of the BJP, Poonawalla had said that he will remain a “lifelong follower of PM Narendra Modi”.
On Wednesday, he said Rahul would never become the Prime Minister of India. “Rahul Gandhi will never be PM of India till I am alive,” Poonawalla wrote on X. “Tareeka badla hai, maqsad nahi” (The method has changed, not the objective). He was responding to a post that read, “Shehzad Poonawala is still destroying Congress left right & centre.”
As a student, Poonawalla began his political journey as a Congress volunteer around 2008. He later served as vice-president of the Pune unit of the party’s student wing, the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), and as secretary of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee.
In 2017, he broke ties with the Congress in 2017 after criticising the party’s internal presidential election process, alleging that it was “rigged” in favour of Rahul Gandhi. He joined the BJP the same year.
