Congress' Iftar party for political engineering, ours a social event: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

NEW DELHI: The Congress hosts Iftar parties for "political engineering" but our event is part of "social engineering" to give the dignity the minority community has never received, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said today.

Comparing the Congress's Iftar party to the one he hosted this evening, the minister said: "We talk about development and dignity. The Congress's Iftar is for political engineering. No one has ever tried to organise an Iftar for social engineering. We have done it, especially when we are talking about Muslim women, triple talaq and other issues related to their empowerment," Naqvi told PTI.

Naqvi had announced an Iftar party a day after the Congress said it would host a fast-breaking meal on Wednesday.

Attended by more than 300 Muslim women, including a few who were given tripla talaq, Naqvi's Iftar certainly attracted a lot of media attention.

Interacting with the Muslim women, the minister stressed that the BJP government had made possible for them to go for Haj without a male companion.

"For the first time after Independence, Muslim officers would be posted in Saudi Arabia for Haj duty.

A woman officer is also being deployed to help the women who will travel alone," Naqvi informed.

The government has already launched 'Progress Panchayat', an outreach campaign to create awareness about its programmes for the welfare of minorities, and similar programmes for Muslim women will also be launched soon, Naqvi informed.

The Iftar party was attended by a number of NDA ministers, including Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar, Smriti Irani, Jitendra Singh, M J Akbar, among others.