Rahul Gandhi accused Centre of "disarming women in accordance with the Sangh's mentality" (File)
Citing the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2021 which has downgraded India by 28 spots, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the BJP-led Central government of "disarming women in accordance with the Sangh's mentality".
He said that such a decline in India's ranking in the Global Gender Gap report is "very dangerous" for the country.
"In accordance with the Sangh's mentality, the Centre is engaged in disarming women - this is very dangerous for India," said Rahul Gandhi in a tweet today.
India has fallen 28 places in the WEF's Global Gender Gap Report 2021 and is now ranked 140 among 156 countries.
According to the report released on Wednesday by the WEF, India is now one of the worst performers in South Asia, trailing behind Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
The report further said that globally, the average distance completed to parity is at 68 per cent, a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points).
"These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide," it said.
As per the report, the gender gap in political empowerment remains the largest: women represent only 26.1 per cent of some 35,500 parliament seats and just 22.6 per cent of over 3,400 ministers worldwide.
In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of state, as of January 15, 2021, the report further said.
According to the data presented in the report, India has declined on the political empowerment index as well by 13.5 percentage points, and a decline in the number of women ministers, from 23.1 per cent in 2019 to 9.1 per cent in 2021. India has still performed relatively well compared to other countries, ranking 51 in women's participation in politics.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)