Overwhelmed with a huge turnout at the women’s conference organised on Sunday by the women affiliate of the State Congress at Jiapota village in Haridwar district, Chief Minister Harish Rawat said that the gathering confirmed the party’s popularity graph was rising steadily. “The huge participation of the women augurs well for the party ahead of the election. It is not unexpected, given the initiatives our Government has been taking to empower them in the true sense of the term,” he said.
Quizzed over the Congress dissidents who are now in the saffron camp readying to contest from the same seats they were elected in the last election on Congress tickets, CM said that they were not the least worried. “It is the BJP which is worried as they are still dithering over whether to give the rebels tickets. In case they do they would be the losers as the people are determined to teach the rebels lessons,” he said.
Asked whether his daughter Anupma Rawat, the national women Congress secretary, would get ticket in the upcoming Assembly election, Harish Rawat said that he had nothing to do regarding the matter. “The party high command would take the final call,” he said.
He, however, hastened to add that Anupma, an active worker of the party, was engaged in further strengthening the party in the State as well as in the country.
A beaming Anupma Rawat who played an instrumental role in ensuring a huge women participation in the conference attributed the gathering to the Matri Shakti being on the ascendant graph in the state. “The initiatives taken by the Harish Rawat Government to empower the women from the grassroots are paying dividends,” she said, adding that the party president Sonia Gandhi’s sincere efforts to have 33 per cent reservation for women in the lok Sabha was a tremendous nudge to the cause of the women empowerment.