Mandatory Pink Card in DTC buses assault on women rights: Bharadwaj
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday criticised the Delhi Government for making Pink Cards mandatory for free travel in Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses, calling it a direct assault on the rights of poor women from different states residing in the national capital.
AAP Delhi unit chief Saurabh Bharadwaj said that when every woman living in Delhi was already travelling free in DTC buses without discrimination, there was no justification for imposing an additional card requirement.
In a video message on X, Bharadwaj said, “Rekha Gupta is creating a new mockery. She says now women will be given a Pink Card instead of a Pink Ticket. Until now, any woman coming from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana or anywhere else and residing in Delhi would board a bus and be issued a free Pink Ticket, enabling her to travel without any difficulty. But now this new arrangement is being imposed that women will have to get a Pink Card made.”
The former minister questioned the financial and administrative logic behind the move. “Why does the BJP Government want to incur the expense of making Pink Cards? The government has not clarified which woman will be able to get this card and which woman will not. To get the card made, they will demand a Delhi Aadhaar card. But lakhs of women from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Purvanchal who live in Delhi still have Aadhaar cards from their original states. Is the BJP Government directly hatching a conspiracy to dispossess these poor Purvanchali women of their right?” he said.
Raising concerns over corruption, Bharadwaj added, “No one is explaining how there could be corruption in a free ticket. In return for issuing a ticket, the bus conductor gets nothing because conductors are paid fixed salaries, and private buses are paid on a per-kilometre basis. The government does not pay anyone based on the number of tickets issued. In a system where there was no scope for corruption, the BJP has now created new avenues for corruption.”
