Telangana minister seeks PM view on ‘marriage’

Hyderabad: A remark by Telangana minister for information technology & communications K.T. Rama Rao on what views “the Prime Minister” had on marriage, led to doubts about which Prime Minister he was referring to.

Mr Rama Rao was moderating the session on ‘Innovations in Workforce Development and Skills Training’ and was sharing the dais with the adviser to the US President, Ivanka Trump, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, Cherie Blair, managing director & CEO of ICICI Bank, Chanda Kochhar, and chief customer officer of Dell EMC, Karen Quintos.

Mr Rama Rao said that all the panellists were mothers of daughters and asked them what was the single most important thing that must change in the government’s perspective and the perspective of society as a whole when it came to women.   

Ms Blair said that she advised her daughter to choose the right partner and told her two sons that they must be proud of the women they are marrying and what they are doing in their careers. She also said that at some point men have to be prepared to take a step back in their careers so that their wives’ careers can flourish. Men should never think that a woman’s career is secondary to theirs. To this Mr Rama Rao said, “Since you mention choosing the right partner, one of these days when I catch up with the Prime Minister, I am going to talk about his perspective on choosing the right partner.”

This caused some amusement in the audience, which was added to when Ms Blair came back with a quick “Can you also ask him when he is going to take a step back in his career so that I can get ahead in mine.”

“Absolutely, I will ask him that,” Mr Rama Rao assured her. While Ms Blair assumed that the Prime Minister referred to was her husband and former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, many people in the audience assumed it was Mr Modi as Mr Blair was Prime Minister more than a decade ago.

After the discussion, Mr Rama Rao said that he was thrilled to be part of the panel. He added that there are not enough women legislators in the Telangana Rashtra Samithi to give them a place in the cabinet and that the CM K. Chandrashekar Rao will take a decision to include women in the cabinet when the time is right. He reiterated his party’s stance on giving 33% reservation to women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies.