Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren linked female infanticide to inflation in the country during an address in the state Assembly on Friday.

“Cases of female infanticide, child marriage will increase due to inflation in the coming days if we’ll not control inflation in the country,” Soren said during his address. 

Adding that the country’s “Adivasis, Dalits, backward classes will be the worst impacted by inflation,” Soren said that upliftment campaigns like ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ will cease to exist as people will be unable to pay for the education of their daughters. 

“Poverty will increase. Cases of female infanticide will increase. Evils in society, like some people say – ‘girl child is a burden’ will be on a rise due to inflation. There will be chaos in other sectors too, but disorder will prevail in the society,” Soren said. 

“We have been fighting this fight since independence – ‘Beti bachao, beti padao’. All the progress will be undone. Nobody will teach the girl child,” he added.

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“They will treat the girl child as a burden. A parent will have to chose between a son and a daughter. And those who will be trapped in this will be Dalits, tribals, people from backward castes and those in regions riddled with poverty. While the state trying to progress, if the nation doesn’t, we don’t know what can we do,” the 46-year-old said in a video uploaded by ANI on Twitter. 

The comment comes as an attack on the BJP government amid similar flak from other political leaders. Earlier this week, former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had stated, “Diesel, petrol, LPG (cooking gas), education, medicines and food, all have become dearer. This is the truth of the dictatorial BJP.”