Uttar Pradesh: Nirbhaya’s lawyer joins BSP, may contest poll

LUCKNOW: Seema Kushwaha, the Supreme Court lawyer in the 2012 Nirbhaya rape case and the 2020 Hathras rape case, joined the Bahujan Samaj Party on Thursday.
The joining comes days before the assembly polls, giving rise to the speculation that Kushwaha would be fielded as a BSP candidate. While she did not deny the possibility, Kushwaha told TOI that she would take on whatever role the party would give to her and that included just campaigning in this election.
“I have come into the party with very little time left for the elections so I did not join it with the intention to contest immediately.However, I will do whatever the party asks me to do. Politics and reforms go hand in hand. The issues that I am fighting for on the streets right now, need to be taken to the policy level. These issues will one day be made into law in Parliament,” she said, adding that the issue of her immediate role in BSP would become clear in the next couple of days.
Kushwaha, a well known name in the legal circles for her involvement in cases of crime against women, says that since the Nirbhaya case, she has been working on a case where a man raped his neighbour in Lalitpur and set her on fire, the rape of a girl in Kanpur who was thrown down from the 10th floor after the incident, rapes of minor girls in Kushinagar and Mirzapur and cases of matrimonial disputes, especially with a focus on marital rape.
Rejecting the idea that Congress’ ‘Ladki Hoon Lad Sakti Hoon’ campaign would give women a platform, Kushwaha said that Priyanka Vadra is not the sole representatives of women.