Union minister Smriti Irani, responding to the furore over her comments on “menstrual blood” amid the protests against women’s entry into the Sabarimala temple, on Tuesday said a propaganda was being launched using her as bait.trying to clarify her comments, Irani said that as a practising Hindu married to a practising Zoroastrian, she is not allowed to enter a fire temple to pray, but she “respects that stand by the Zoroastrian community and priests” and “does not approach any court for the right to pray” as a mother of two Zoroastrian children. Similarly, Parsi or non-Parsi menstruating women, irrespective of age, do not go to a fire temple, she added.
These “two statements are factual” and “the rest of the propaganda and agenda being launched using her as bait is just that”, the Union minister said. As far as those who jumped the gun regarding her remark on women visiting a friend’s place with a blood-soaked sanitary napkin are concerned, she said she has yet to find a person who “takes” such a sanitary pad to “offer” to anyone, let alone a friend.
Prasanta Patnaik