Union Minister Smriti Irani on Friday wondered in the Lok Sabha why a woman MP cannot be addressed as a ‘woman’. The Union Women and Child Development Minister made this remark on the objection raised by Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of Congress and Saugata Roy of TMC. During the Question Hour in the Lok Sabha, Gita Vishwanath Vanga of YSRCP was addressed by Irani as a woman member. Congress and TeamAC leader had objected to this.
Both said that the minister should have addressed him as an ‘honorable member’. Responding to this, Smriti Irani said that whatever she said was not unparliamentary and it is not wrong to address a woman member as a woman. “I have done no disrespect to his presence in the House,” Irani said.
Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Anubhav Mohanty stood in support of Union Minister Smriti Irani on the issue. He said that Irani did not use any unparliamentary or derogatory or wrong words. Smriti Irani told the Lok Sabha on Friday that her ministry has decided to work with the Indian Academy of Pediatrics to verify the statistics of malnourished children in the country.
Irani said that in February when the height and weight of 10 million children were measured according to WHO criteria, it was found that only 2 percent of them were severely malnourished. He said this while answering a question in the House.
“But if you compare it with the NFHS (National Family Health Survey) data, the figure is 19 per cent there,” Irani said. The second part of the budget session of Parliament began on March 14 and will end on April 8. The first part of the budget session began on 31 January and ended on 11 February.