New Delhi: Union Minister for Textiles Smriti Irani on Thursday evaded question on alleged harassment charges levelled against Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar.
“The gentleman concerned would be in a better position to speak on this issue. I appreciate that the media are accosting his female colleagues, but I think, it is for the gentleman concerned to issue a statement and not for me,” Irani told reporters.
She also took to the occasion to laud the women who have come out in open and shared their ordeal against harassment.
“I have said time and again on this particular issue that women who have been speaking out should not be shamed. Anybody speaking out should in no way be victimised or mocked. That is my only appeal to everybody who is witnessing this surge of an outpouring of emotions and anger on the internet and offline,” she added.
Akbar has come under fire after a woman journalist Priya Ramani claimed on Twitter that in the article which she had written for Vogue India in 2017 about her gut-wrenching incident of sexual misconduct was to expose MJ Akbar.
Since then, opposition parties including the Congress and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) have demanded Akbar’s resignation.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]