Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij today lashed out at opposition Congress for choosing to "skip" the discussion on Centre's ambitious 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' scheme in the Assembly.
A number of MLAs took part in the non-official resolution pertaining to 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' scheme that was moved by BJP MLA Gian Chand Gupta.
The Congress members had walked out during the Question Hour and boycotted proceedings for remainder of the day today after they alleged that the ruling members were "insulting national leaders".
The resolution, which was later passed by the House in the absence of Congress members though main opposition INLD MLAs was present and supported it, recommended to the state government that BBBP scheme may be implemented as a "public movement for making Haryana leading state in the country for the education and upliftment of women".
The House also thanked the Centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for starting such an initiative to save and educate the daughters.
Modi had launched the scheme from Panipat in Haryana, which is infamous for adverse sex ratio, on January 22.
Hitting out at the Congress members who had walked out, Vij said, "such a serious issue is being discussed in the House, but they are not present. Having adverse sex ratio and illegal practice of female foeticide is a blot on the face of our state."
"We have to work to correct this. But the Congress party, whose leader is a woman, is not concerned, which is why not a single legislator of the party is present here," he said.
Ironically, while the discussion on the resolution took place for more than two hours before it was passed, Vij, besides Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and other senior Ministers barring Women and Child Development Minister Kavita Jain, were not present in the House for most of the proceedings.
A number of ruling and opposition MLAs that included BJP's Santosh Yadav, Subhash Sudha, Prem Lata Singh, Dr Kamal Gupta, Aseem Goel, Subhash Barala and Bakshish Singh of the BJP and Zakir Hussain of the INLD spoke on the resolution.
Zakir Hussain said that Mewat has shown the way in saving the daughters as sex ratio of 907/1000 was far better than most other districts of Haryana.
He said that there was a need to change the mindset of the people towards the girl child.
Prem Lata, wife of Union Minister Birender Singh said that "small machines from Punjab have flooded many parts of Haryana offering cheap sex determination tests...In foreign countries, there is no ban on sex determination of a foetus, which shows that they are not just advanced in development, but in their thoughts too they are way ahead than us".
Dr Kamal Gupta of BJP said that having tougher laws against female foeticide alone will not help and only a change in mindset will help improve things.
