Union Minister of Home Affairs Rajnath Singh on Saturday appeared to make a joke about India’s #MeToo movement while warning political parties not to form an alliance with the Congress. Singh is the head of a group of ministers recently set up by the government to examine and strengthen the existing legal and institutional frameworks for dealing with matters of sexual harassment of women at workplaces.
He said that whichever party has aligned with the Congress in the past has failed. “Let’s hope all opposition parties don’t form an alliance with the Congress only to be betrayed later,” Singh said, according to NDTV. “They might be forced to start their own #MeToo campaign against the Congress.” He was speaking to Bharatiya Janata Party workers after inaugurating the national convention of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in Hyderabad.
Singh also claimed that all political parties are afraid of the BJP and are fighting elections together but “with a bad motive” – “Modi roko”, or to stop Prime Minister Narendra Modi from returning to power, according to The New Indian Express.
The #MeToo movement
Since October 5, dozens of women, including actors and journalists, have taken to social media to give detailed accounts of the sexual harassment and misconduct they have faced across several sectors such as advertising, Tamil and Hindi film industries, the field of arts, music and dance, publishing, journalism, sports, religion and even non-profit organisations. Bharatiya Janata Party leader MJ Akbar resigned as Union minister on October 17 after several women journalists accused him of sexual harassment.
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