New Delhi: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday spoke up in support of college students in Karnataka who have been banned from wearing the hijab in classrooms, tweeting that the choice of what clothes to wear was theirs alone, and that this right is protected by the Constitution.
“Whether it is a bikini, a ghoonghat, a pair of jeans, or a hijab, it is a woman’s right to decide what she wants to wear. This right is GUARANTEED by the Indian constitution. Stop harassing women,” Ms Gandhi Vadra tweeted with the hashtag #ladkihoonladsaktihoon.
Whether it is a bikini, a ghoonghat, a pair of jeans or a hijab, it is a woman’s right to decide what she wants to wear.
This right is GUARANTEED by the Indian constitution. Stop harassing women. #ladkihoonladsaktihoon
— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) February 9, 2022
Her statement comes as the hijab controversy that first erupted in January at a government PU College in Udupi, where six students who attended classes wearing headscarves in violation of the stipulated dress code were asked to leave the campus, has spread to different parts of the state with Hindu students too responding by turning up in saffron shawls. Saffron-clad students are also being barred from entering classes.
The row has also taken a political colour as the ruling BJP stood strongly in support of uniform-related rules being enforced by educational institutions, calling the headscarf, a religious symbol, while the opposition Congress has come out in support of Muslim girls.