By Anushka Vats,News18

Copyright news18

Madhya Pradesh Urban Development Minister and senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya has sparked a row after he launched a scathing attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his bond with his sister Priyanka Gandhi.
Vijayvargiya, who was addressing a rally in Shajapur during an event organised on the birth anniversary of BJP ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay, spoke about culture, asserting that the Opposition leaders “kiss their young sisters in the middle of a crossroads”.
“We are people of an old culture. In our sisters’ village, we don’t even drink the water. In Jirapur, where my aunt lived, my father would carry a pot of water from home. Our opposition leaders today are such that they kiss their young sisters in the middle of a crossroads. I want to ask you, who among you kisses your young sisters or daughters in public? This is a lack of values. These are foreign values, brought up abroad. They even speak rudely to the Prime Minister,” he said in an apparent attack on Gandhi.
Retracting his remark while speaking to NDTV, the senior BJP leader said that it’s not Gandhi’s fault as he had studied abroad, importing foreign values.
“It’s not his (Gandhi’s) fault. The Leader of the Opposition studied abroad and imported those values. He doesn’t understand Indian traditions. He even addresses the Prime Minister as ‘tu’,” he told NDTV.
Later, he also issued a clarification on his remark saying he was speaking about cultural differences. He also stated that while all relationships are sacred, cultural context matters, adding that no questions would have arisen had his full speech been heard.
Meanwhile, Congress leader and State party president Jitu Patwari hit back at the BJP leader, saying this only highlights his thinking about sisters and daughters.
“Kailash Vijayvargiya has chosen Navratri, the festival of worshipping the Mother Goddess, to insult the sacred brother-sister bond. Everyone knows his language. He has insulted women repeatedly, sometimes over their clothes, sometimes their education, sometimes their speech. This is his thinking about sisters and daughters. Frankly, I feel ashamed to even respond to such a shameless comment,” said Patwari.
Notably, this is not the first time the BJP Madhya Pradesh leader has sparked a controversy with his remarks. Earlier in June, he landed in another row over his remarks on women’s clothing during an event in Bhopal.
“I believe women should dress beautifully in Indian attire, as it is highly regarded in our culture. But, in some other countries, women who wear less clothes are often considered to be fashionable,” he was heard saying in a video that went viral.
He further compared women wearing less clothes with politicians giving fewer speeches and called both of them “a lack of substance.”
“To put it simply, women who wear less are like politicians who give fewer speeches; both seem to lack substance. I view women as goddesses, and they should wear good clothes. I don’t like women or girls who wear revealing clothes, to the point where I refuse to take photos with them,” he had stated.