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Cop From Rajasthan Alleges 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' Was Her Original Phrase

'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' Was My Original Phrase, Alleges Cop From Rajasthan
NEW DELHI, INDIA - SEPTEMBER 17: Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi launching a logo for Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign at PIB on September 17, 2014 in New Delhi, India. With many incidents of child abusegoing unreported, a drive will be launched to sensitise children to express if they encounter any inappropriate touch, request or demands, even in writing if they are not comfortable orally. (Photo by Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
Hindustan Times via Getty Images
NEW DELHI, INDIA - SEPTEMBER 17: Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi launching a logo for Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign at PIB on September 17, 2014 in New Delhi, India. With many incidents of child abusegoing unreported, a drive will be launched to sensitise children to express if they encounter any inappropriate touch, request or demands, even in writing if they are not comfortable orally. (Photo by Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

A police officer from Rajasthan has alleged that the central government "stole" from her the phrase for its national campaign to save and educate the girl child in India. Chetna Bhati, the chief of the women's police station in Udaipur, has claimed that the slogan 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' was first conceived by her in 1999 for a series of poems she wrote.

"I do not need money or publicity," she told The Times of India. "I just want to be acknowledged for an idea that has become so popular."

Bhati has been filing Right To Information (RTI) requests to the Prime Minister's Office to find out how it decided on the phrase. The questions, forwarded to the departments for women and child development and school education and literacy, could not be answered by the government officials, Bhati said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi listening to Madhuri Dixit's speech at launch of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao programme on 22 January, 2015 in Panipat, India.

The Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana is one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pet projects. It was one of the first campaigns announced by the Modi government shortly after it came to power in May 2014. By October that year, Modi announced the campaign to address the skewed sex ratio, with an initial corpus of ₹100 crore (US$15 million). It identified 100 "gender critical districts" where the child sex ratio showed an alarming decline. Several celebrities have come forward to endorse and support the project, since its inception.

Bhati, who has postgraduate degrees in History and English, was a school teacher before she decided to join the police force two decades ago, according to the TOI report. She claimed that in 2002, she had sent some posters she had made on the saving the girl child in India to then Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, but never got a response. Later, in 2005, she publicly recited her poems on 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao'.

Bhati told TOI that she hopes PM Modi would acknowledge her original idea, as in his public speeches he refers to small instances from daily life that influences him.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.