Former Union Home Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram expressed shock and disappointment over the exclusion of women journalists from Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi’s press conference in New Delhi.
Congress attacks Centre alleging ‘hasty anti-India trade deal' after US SC scraps Trump tariffs. (File photo: ANI)
After no women journalists were allowed to attend the press conference conducted by Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in New Delhi on Friday at the Afghan embassy, several opposition leaders have expressed anger over the action.
Senior Congress leader and former Home Minister P Chidambaram condemned the incident and urged that male journalists should have walked out when they found out that their women colleagues were excluded.
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Taking to X, he said, “I am shocked that women journalists were excluded from the press conference addressed by Mr Amir Khan Muttaqi of Afghanistan In my personal view, the men journalists should have walked out when they found that their women colleagues were excluded (or not invited).”
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Meanwhile, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the action and asked him to clarify his position on the removal of female journalists from the press conference of the representative of the Taliban on his visit to India.
In a post on X, she said, ” Prime Minister ji, please clarify your position on the removal of female journalists from the press conference of the representative of the Taliban on his visit to India. If your recognition of women’s rights isn’t just convenient posturing from one election to the other, then how has this insult to some of India’s most competent women been allowed in our country, a country whose women are its backbone and its pride.”
Muttaqi is a member of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, a regime known for imposing severe restrictions on women, effectively preventing them from working.
Muttaqi, who arrived in India on Thursday, met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday in what is being seen as a significant reset in bilateral ties. During the meeting, India announced that its technical mission in Kabul would be upgraded to a full-fledged embassy, a move welcomed by the Afghan foreign minister.
“India is fully committed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence of Afghanistan. I am pleased to announce the upgrading of India’s Technical Mission to the status of an embassy,” Jaishankar said.
However, at a press conference held later in the afternoon at Afghanistan’s embassy, women journalists were reportedly barred from attending.
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