Kejriwal praises DCW, criticises Centre for dirty politics

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to pull up those who "abuse" women and to take action against them.

Speaking at the annual awards ceremony of the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on International Women's Day, Kejriwal made a plea to Modi to "unfollow all those who abuse and threaten women and take strong action against them".

Referring to the Benaras Hindu University (BHU) and the state of women there, he said: "Senior Journalist Rajdeep Sardesai revealed the discrimination between boys and girls in the BHU campus; girls of the campus came up and spoke against injustice. Since then, those girls have been getting rape threats from the university Vice Chancellor (VC). Such goons hold position of VC because of Modi Sarkar."

He made the remarks at the function and said that all days belong to women. He followed this with words of appreciation for the work done by the Commission under the leadership of its current chairperson Swati Maliwal.

"When we celebrate one women's day, the rest of the days of the year seem like men's days. All 365 days should be women's days.

"DCW has done great work, since the time Swati Maliwal has been the chairperson. The commission does not only criticise the Delhi Police but also us (Delhi Government). She was not appointed to use her power. She was appointed to fight injustice - that's exactly what she is doing," he said.

Mentioning the Gurmehar Kaur incident and the threats she received, Kejriwal underlined that it was DCW which came to her rescue when the National Commission for Women (NCW) gave up on her case.

"DCW is working better than NCW. NCW should learn from them. They do not help people in need but pick faults in what DCW does.

"When Gurmehar Kaur received rape threats, NCW gave up. DCW came up to help the girl who raised voice against ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) and was declared 'anti-national'," he said.

Kejriwal rounded off his speech with a sharp rebuke aimed at the Centre in which he asked the latter to stop its "dirty politics" and start respecting citizens and democracy.

He said that he was upset with the "hooliganism" which has been on the rise for the last three years.