Menu
This Diwali sure has brought out the charitable side of people in India. After the news broke about an employer in Surat giving away luxury items to his precious employees (see press here), now, news has broken about Smriti Irani’s charitable efforts during Diwali! Irani is a Bollywood actor, TV star, and now politician who represents the Bharatiya Janata Party and is the incumbent Minister of Human Resource Development of Government of India. The 15,000 saris (all sourced from Surat and picked out by Irani herself) will be distributed to women in the Amethi Lok Sabha constituency. Originally, they were meant to be distributed for Dussera, but Irani later opted to give them for Diwali.
The Times of India spoke with Vijay Gupta, Irani’s aid, who divulged the following,
“We originally planned to distribute around 12,000 saris. However, we then decided to distribute 15,000 saris. We’ve 2,500 more saris left to give away.”
Gupta also told the Times of India that the recipients of the saris were selected from the villages that had resulted in the highest number of votes for the BJP during the major Lok Sabha elections. He stated that the gifts are being given due to Irani’s, “strong will to serve the people of Amethi despite her defeat in the last parliamentary election.”
Irani had lost the Amethi seat to Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi earlier this year, so it is quite possible she is giving the saris to help sway some votes in her favor for the next election. Regardless of the motive, we think it is a great idea to think of the villagers in these communities by making their Diwali shine even more with the saris!
