Babulal Gaur, Madhya Pradesh’s octogenarian home minister, had better not be making any visits to women’s groups. Given his latest scandal, he is not likely to come out unscathed.
The BJP minister gave his party leaders as well as everybody else in his vicinity some rather uncomfortable and cringe-worthy moments when he narrated a rather vulgar episode of how a Russian leader’s wife was curious about his dhoti.
The occasion was a state-level convention organised by the party’s naturopathy cell and an international naturopathy organisation on Sunday. Addressing the event, the 84-year-old former chief minister reportedly said the wife of a Russian leader was curious about how he wore the dhoti without a zip or a belt.
“I told her I can’t teach you how to wear it, but I can certainly teach you how to remove it, but that too later not now,” local newspapers quoted the veteran leader as saying during the event.
As if that nauseating description was not enough, Gaur went on to narrate to the gathering how he was kissed on the forehead by the Russian woman and he prevented some more women from doing so.
“Russian women are healthy. Had that photograph (of a woman kissing his forehead) been available locally, BJP would not have given a ticket in the first place,” he said.
Perhaps this is what is called development. That was surely some export quality sexual harassment on a global stage!
This is hardly the minister’s first brush with controversy. The minister drew much ire in June last year for saying rape was sometimes right and sometimes wrong. A few months before, he had also claimed that there are fewer rape cases in the South because women dress decently and are religious.
And this was the man who was sent on a state visit, to a foreign nation, as a representative of our country. Proud moment indeed!
