Former Chief Minister Uma Bharti has become angry over a statement by Ashok Shah, Additional Chief Secretary, Woman and Child Development Department of Madhya Pradesh. She has also spoken to the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on this issue. Along with this, she has also tweeted opposing the statement.
In fact, in the presence of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, ACS Ashok Shah had given a statement in which he had cited a scheme of the government behind the increase of breastfeeding in women. CM Shivraj was present as the chief guest during the Ladli Laxmi Yojana 2 programme of the Women and Child Development Department. In the same program, Additional Chief Secretary of the department, Ashok Shah said something that shocked everyone. He said that in fact the number of mothers who were feeding their children (meaning daughters) in Madhya Pradesh was very less, which has now increased after the start of the scheme.
To substantiate his claim, she said that in the year 2005, only 15 percent of mothers used to feed their daughters and after the scheme, today this figure has increased to 42 percent. Regarding this matter, former Chief Minister Uma Bharti has spoken to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan over the phone and has also tweeted.
Uma Bharti has written in her tweet that 'Welcome to the start of implementation of Ladli Laxmi Yojana 2.0 in Madhya Pradesh. Giving a speech in this programme of the Madhya Pradesh government, I saw a very inconsistent and ridiculous statement of a senior officer of the state. The Chief Minister of our state is very aware and sensitive about the respect of women, when I told him this by talking on the phone today, he disagreed with this statement and was surprised. From the talk of the Chief Minister, it seemed that he could not listen to it due to a lot of noise in the function. I think he will figure out a way to correct this statement himself”.
The senior official said that “because of our scheme now 42% of women feed their daughters as against 15% before 2005.” Uma Bharti said that if his statement is correct, then it is anti-daughter, anti-mother and tarnishing the image of the mother power of Madhya Pradesh, officials should be aware and responsible for their statement.
“Whether it is rich or poor, son or daughter, every mother feeds her child as soon as the child is born,except in rare cases which may happen for many reasons. After all, all women are also daughters, how did they survive?”-asked Uma Bharti.