Row over former BJP MP turning away Muslim women from charity event

A controversy erupted here on Monday (February 23, 2026) over former Bharatiya Janata Party MP Sukhbir Singh Jaunpuria turning away Muslim women from a charity event in Tonk district, where he distributed blankets to poor families. Mr. Jaunpuria allegedly took back a blanket from a woman after asking her name.

The programme was organised on the premises of a temple at Kareda Buzurg village in Niwai tehsil on Sunday (February 22). Mr. Jaunpuria, who went to the village to invite people for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed visit to Ajmer on February 28, gave away blankets to women who had gathered to received aid.

In a video footage of the event circulated on social media, Mr. Jaunpuria was seen enquiring about the recipients’ names. When a woman identified herself as Shakuran Bano, the former MP reacted sharply, asking her to step aside and leave the blanket behind.

“Hat ek taraf, kambal yahin chhod de” (Pull aside, leave the blanket here), Mr. Jaunpuria was heard saying in the video. He also reportedly said, “Jo Modi ko gaali deta hai, use kambal lene ka haq nahin hai” (Those who abuse Mr. Modi do not deserve to get a blanket).

Some other Muslim women who initially received blankets had them taken back after their religious identity was revealed. When some people attending the programme took exception to Mr. Jaunpuria’s behaviour and confronted him, he reportedly told them that the blanket distribution was his “personal initiative”, funded privately, and was not a government scheme.

The Opposition Congress strongly criticised Mr. Jaunpuria’s act, and some Youth Congress workers went back to Kareda Buzurg on Monday (February 23) to give blankets to the women turned away from the programme. A group of villagers and Congress party workers also staged a protest and torched an effigy of Mr. Jaunpuria.

Former Niwai Block Congress president Rajesh Chaudhary, who led the demonstration, said Mr. Jaunpuria had insulted the women and tried to disturb communal harmony in the region. Senior Congress leaders Govind Singh Dotasra, Tika Ram Jully and Sachin Pilot also condemned Mr. Jaunpuria’s act, saying it reflected the BJP’s ideology based on “hatred, polarisation and division”.

Mr. Jaunapuria was the MP from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur for two consecutive terms, having won the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019. He lost the seat to Congress’s Harish Chandra Meena in the 2024 Parliamentary elections.