They raised wrong slogans, I stopped them: Priyanka Gandhi

NEW DELHI: A day after being served a notice from National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Friday that she stopped children from shouting abusive slogan against PM Modi.

“Main saitalis saal ki hun. Maine rajneeti bhi isliye nahi ki kyon ki main apne bachhon ki parwarish achi tarah se karna chahti thi.. toh kaise main galat sanskar sikhaoongi? (I am a 47-year-old. I never did politics actively so that I could take care of my children. I can never teach anything wrong to the children),” Gandhi told reporters in Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli district, as per The Indian Express reports.

“The children were playing among themselves. “When I got down to meet them, they raised some slogans. As soon as they raised wrong slogans, I stopped them and told them to raise good slogans instead.”

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, on Wednesday, came across a group of school children while campaigning in Amethi.

The children saw her and started clapping and shouting slogans ‘Chowkidar chor hai’. Priyanka looked on amused when the emboldened children shouted another slogan that included an expletive for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

YouTube video

Priyanka immediately stopped the children and said, “yeh wala achcha nahin hai. Achche bachche bano aur achcha bolo”. The children then started shouting “Rahul Gandhi zindabad” and Priyanka moved on.

After the video clip of the incident went viral on the social media, NCPCR issued a notice to Priyanka, the Congress General Secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh, for allegedly involving children in her election campaign.

In its notice to Gandhi, the apex child rights body asked her to provide details, within three days.

The NCPCR has also written to the Election Commission of India regarding a video in which children were seen using abusive language for PM Modi before Vadra.

In its letter to the Chief Election Commissioner, NCPCR stated, “The Commission is in receipt of a complaint, wherein a video link has been shared, in which it is seen that children are actively participating in election campaigning. The children can be seen making derogatory remarks and using abusive languages in the presence of Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi.”