NEW DELHI: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi along with opposition MPs on Tuesday donned a bag supporting Bangladeshi minorities in the Parliament a day after she was criticised by the Bharatiya Janata Party for carrying a bag with “Palestine” written on it.
“Stand with Bangladeshi Hindus and Christians,” the quote on her bag read, in reference to the incidents of attacks on minorities in Bangladesh following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The MPs also carried placards displaying messages against atrocities on minorities in Bangladesh, and protest at the Parliament premises.
Earlier, BJP criticised Priyanka and labelled her action as “appeasement”
BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya called Priyanka “bigger disaster than Rahul Gandhi”.
“At the end of this Parliament session, observe a two minute silence for everyone in the Congress, who believed Priyanka Vadra was the long-awaited solution, they should have embraced earlier. She is a bigger disaster than Rahul Gandhi, who thinks sporting a bag in support of Palestine in the Parliament, is about fighting patriarchy. That is right. Crass communal virtue signaling to Muslims is now cloaked as stance against patriarchy! Make no mistake, Congress is the New Muslim League,” Malviya wrote on X.
Priyanka Gandhi responded by saying that the criticism was “typical patriarchy” where she was “being told what to wear and what not to wear”.
“Who is going to decide what clothes I wear now. That is typical patriarchy that you decide what clothes women wear. I don’t subscribe to it. I will wear what I want to.”
BJP’s Sambit Patra also hit out at Priyanka Gandhi, saying “The Gandhi family has always been carrying the bag of appeasement”.
“The appeasement bag is the reason for their losses in elections,” Sambit Patra said during a press briefing at the national capital.
Priyanka’s gesture comes days after she was seen wearing a black-and-white keffiyeh (a traditional Palestinian headscarf) during a meeting with the Palestinian Embassy’s Charge d’Affaires.