BJP leader and Vadodara taluka panchayat president Ankita Parmar has been chosen to represent India at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on the Beijing+30 Review in collaboration with UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, in Bangkok. The event addressing gender equality is set to be held between November 19 and November 21. Parmar, who is known for her social media posts, took to Instagram to thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said, “I am delighted that the Ministry of Panchayati Raj has selected me to represent India at an international platform. I thank the Prime Minister for inspiring me to work in the field of women and children and assure that I will continue to work for the same in the days to come.” Parmar was felicitated by Vadodara district panchayat president Gayatri Mahida and Vadodara District Development Officer Mamta Hirpara for her selection.
Tug of War
At the Diwali Snehmilan of the BJP in Manjalpur assembly constituency earlier this week, the ongoing tug of war within the party came to the fore once again when two elected MLAs of the party had a go at each other over the recent “membership drive” of the party that was held in September. Addressing the gathering, Vadodara BJP’s senior most MLA Yogesh Patel from Manjalpur said that it was “a matter of probe” how the Akota assembly constituency became the “highest scorer” in the membership drive, eliciting a fitting response from Akota MLA Chaitanya Desai, when his turn came to speak. While the leaders of the party unit, including city president Vijay Shah and former two-term MP Ranjan Bhatt, joined the others in loud laughter at the exchange between the two MLAs, the incident has not been taken lightly by the party, senior leaders said. At the event, Patel said, “It is a matter of investigation how Akota AC got such numbers in the membership drive. Some of our (Manjalpur) numbers were added to their tally, it seems.” To this, Desai, while speaking from the dais, told Patel, “It should be a matter of research and concern to you why you were not able to pull off the numbers this time.”