Madhya Pradesh minister Vijay Shah sparks fresh controversy over remarks on Ladli Behna scheme beneficiaries

Former CM and ex-state Congress chief Kamal Nath, also took to X on the same issue. “The minister is threatening the women that failure to come to the CM’s event will lead to them being dropped from the list of Ladli Behna Scheme beneficiaries. The BJP and its minister seem to be considering the Ladli Behnas as their bonded labour. It amounts to an open challenge to the civil rights and independent existence of women in the state.”Importantly, the Ladli Behna Scheme was launched in June 2023 by then Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government in the state. Currently, Rs 1500 are being credited into the accounts of around 1.27 crore beneficiaries monthly under the pro-poor women scheme.Making an objectionable remark about Colonel Sophia Quereshi in May 2025 or this latest remarks about Laldli Behnas in Ratlam, isn’t the first time that the senior cabinet minister Vijay Shah has made women-targeted remarks.In September this year, Shah had come out in support of his senior cabinet colleague and former BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya over the latter’s controversial remark related to the leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi, kissing MP sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, publicly.“His (Vijayvargiya) statements are correct, as in the Indian culture, no brother kisses his sister in public. Kissing one’s sister in public is not our culture and not at all in line with our customs and traditions. For those who indulge in such acts, they should do it in their homes and not on the crossroads,” Shah had said in home district Khandwa in September.In April 2013, BJP’s 62-year-old tribal politician Shah had to resign as the state’s scheduled caste and scheduled tribe welfare minister, reportedly in the wake of his sexual innuendos about some women BJP leaders and then MP CM (and current union agriculture minister) Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s wife Sadhna Singh.In March 2024, he had suggested that the Department of Posts appoint actor-turned-BJP MP Hema Malini as brand ambassador to get more deposits into its investment and savings schemes.“Make her (Malini) the brand ambassador and then tell me, as we’re Hema Malini’s patthe. We’ll get all the money of poor people out from the banks and put it in the post office,” he had said while inaugurating the post office passport service centre in his native Khandwa district in March 2024.



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