Modi recalls Mulayam's 'boys will be boys' remark, lauds Adityanath govt for women safety

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday recalled Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav's 'boys will be boys' remark and slammed the party over law and order when it was in power in Uttar Pradesh.

Addressing a women's conference in his Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, Modi claimed that there was "jungle raj" during the Samajwadi Party rule in Uttar Pradesh and women found it difficult to step out of their homes.

The "SP people" used to shamelessly say boys make mistakes, Modi said in an apparent reference to Yadav's controversial remark made a decade back while opposing capital punishment for rape.

Boys will be boys, they make "mistakes", the SP founder had then said.

"Let SP's boys make a mistake now," Modi dared, saying that the Yogi Adityanath government will deal with them in a manner that they would not have imagined.

The prime minister also said that the Congress and Samajwadi Party have always neglected the welfare of women but under the BJP government, women are at the centre of the country's success story.

Terming the INDIA bloc members "anti-women", Modi said had the Congress been in power, kitchen expenses in every household would have gone up two to three times.

He said the BJP government has helped them improve their lives with the help of various schemes.