The National Commission for Women (NCW) has said that its chairperson Rekha Sharma would meet the woman who was reportedly seen in the video involving Patidar leader Hardik Patel.
The NCW in its statement said, “A team from the NCW with chairperson Rekha Sharma will be heading to Surat tonight to meet a girl who, according to a complaint received by the NCW, is being sexually exploited by Hardik Patel.”
The rights body also said the complainant in the case was not the victim, however, she was willing to speak to the officials of the NCW.
The statement added, “The complaint contains personal information about a girl who wishes to talk to the commission confidentially as she is scared to come forward. Rekha Sharma will talk to the media once the team has spoken to the girl and investigated the matter thoroughly.”
This is not the first time Sharma, former media in-charge of the BJP in Haryana, is accused of blatant biases in favour of the saffron party. Not so long ago, she had summoned Congress MP Shashi Tharoor for his Twitter pun targetted at the newly crowned Miss World Manushi Chhillar.
The NCW, headed by Sharma, has, however, not taken any similar action in the case of death threats issued to Deepika Padukone by her party colleague in Haryana, who announced a Rs 10 crore bounty for anyone who could behead the Bollywood actor.
Sharma’s action comes amidst reports of swelling crowd at Hardik’s road shows ahead of Gujarat assembly polls, where the BJP is feeling the heat for the first time in 22 years. Experts say that Sharma’s eagerness to travel to Gujarat even though the woman present in the video had not registered the complaint, is an effort to embarrass the popular Patidar leader.
