New Delhi, Feb. 21: Speakers at a BJP Mahila Morcha rally slammed the Congress today for not doing enough to empower women even as they projected President Pratibha Patil as an icon alongside Indira Gandhi.

The name of Patil, a Congress nominee, created a flutter at the gathering when it cropped up in Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje’s speech. Raje did not attend the event but her text was read out before the audience.

Vasundhara argued that women could not be suppressed anymore, especially when India had a woman Prime Minister (Indira) and now has a woman President.

She and the other speakers at the rally appeared to have forgotten L.K. Advani’s campaign to stop Patil from being elected to the top post last July.

The most common refrain at today’s gathering — that the BJP was the first party to give 33 per cent reservation to women — also appeared far from the truth.

The Congress had amended its rules to ensure such quotas a little over eight years ago, soon after Sonia Gandhi became party president. The BJP did it last month.

The gender stress is seen as a move to counter Sonia’s attempts to project herself as a champion of women.

The Congress has tried to create a distinct gender vote bank over the past few years by targeting women as a constituency, beyond caste and communal lines.