Giriraj Singh targets opponents' silence on JNU incident
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
A charged accusation landed on social media on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, as Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh took direct aim at political voices he accused of staying silent over an alleged incident of atrocity against women at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi — singling out those who once campaigned under the slogan 'Ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon' ('I am a girl, I can fight').
In a Hindi-language post on X, Singh wrote: 'The silence of those who said ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon over the atrocities committed against daughters at JNU shows that for them, women's honour is nothing but a facade.' The slogan was a defining rallying cry of the opposition's outreach to women voters in recent electoral cycles, and Singh's invocation of it is a deliberate attempt to sharpen a contrast between public positioning and, as he frames it, private indifference.
JNU as the perennial flashpoint
JNU has for decades occupied a unique place in Indian political discourse — a Central university where campus activism, left-leaning student politics, and periodic controversies intersect in ways that amplify national debates far beyond the campus gates. Allegations of violence or misconduct at JNU consistently draw partisan responses, with each side accusing the other of selective outrage.
Singh's post fits a well-established pattern in which political figures use social-media platforms to call out perceived hypocrisy on women's safety — targeting opponents who position themselves as champions of gender equity while, in the BJP leader's telling, going quiet when incidents occur in spaces they are ideologically associated with.
The 'silence' charge and its political weight
The rhetorical force of the post rests entirely on the gap between a slogan and a response. By naming the slogan rather than the party or individual, Singh keeps the accusation broad and combustible — anyone who used that campaign phrase is implicated. It is a tactic that requires no policy detail and no specific counter-proposal; its sole job is to make the silence visible.
What Singh has not provided — and what the post does not claim — is a verified account of the specific incident he references at JNU. NationPress is independently seeking comment from the JNU administration and student bodies on what, precisely, occurred on campus.