Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday, February 9, lent her support to Muslim girls participating in the Karnataka hijab protest.
“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,” she tweeted.
Priyanka Gandhi added that the right to wear whatever a woman wanted was guaranteed by the Constitution of India. “This right is guaranteed by the Indian constitution. Stop harassing women,” she said.
The Karnataka hijab row started on January 1 after the management of a government pre-university college in the coastal town of Udupi in Karnataka barred six Muslim girls from attending classes for wearing hijab as the dress was against prescribed norms of the college.
The issue has now spiralled into a massive controversy with Hindu college students now sporting saffron scarves and waving saffron flags, demanding permission to display their religious attires and symbols if hijab is allowed in educational institutions.
After protests in Bagalkot turned violent and section 144 was imposed in Shivamogga as the hijab-versus-saffron scarves protests escalated on Tuesday, the Karnataka CM ordered schools and colleges to be shut for the next three days. In Udupi, a group of protesters threw stones at each other and a saffron flag was hoisted outside a school.
