High Profile Dowry Death, Feud Gets Buried Post All-Party Women’s Meet

The issue of dowry harassment picked up steam in Maharashtra after a party worker’s family from Ajit Pawar’s NCP got arrested following the suspicious suicide of his daughter-in-law in Pune. Public ire soon turned into a political slugfest once it emerged that the distraught victim had sought help from chairperson of the state women’s commission Rupali Chakankar, who failed to act. Chakankar, known to be a close aide of Ajit Pawar did try to downplay by pointing out she had forwarded the complaint to the authorities for action. The Shiv Sena faction of Uddhav Thackeray jumped in, raising questions about the effectiveness of political nominees, instead demanding only non-political appointees. Many other instances of daughters being harassed for dowry too surfaced thereafter. Just when the issue of dowry harassment by politically influential families threatened to snowball big, deputy chairperson of Maharashtra’s legislative council Neelam Gorhe waded in to summon an all-party meet of women leaders including the current incumbent women’s chairperson, whose resignation was being demanded for inaction. Gorhe, who had earlier suggested replacing the chairperson for her failure to provide sound guidance to the victim, instead patted the back of Chakankar. Instead administrative demands were sought like additional funding, vacant posts being filled and regular meetings being held. Not surprisingly, Gorhe, currently with the Eknath Shinde faction of the Shiv Sena, had conveniently failed to summon politicians from her rival Uddhav Thackeray wing of Sena. Opposition women leaders did take a delegation to the Maharashtra governor but stopped at that. A high-profile suicide case with allegations of Fortuner SUV being demanded, of crores in dowry being given, of domestic violence meted to victim, thus disappeared away from headlines.