Former minister and Communist Party of India (CPI(M) legislator M M Mani courted a controversy over his remarks against Revolutionary Socialist Party (RMP) leader and legislator K K Rema disrupting the assembly for the second consecutive day on Friday.
During an assembly session on Thursday, Mani said “that great woman (Rema) became a widow. It is her own fate. We are not responsible for it.” Her husband T P Chandrasekharan, a Marxist renegade and RMP founder was killed by CPI(M) workers in 2012 and many party workers were also sentenced in the case later.
Later, Rema said such personal attacks will not pull her back. “I suffered worst at the hands of the CPI(M). Such cheap attacks won’t affect me,” she said.
Though the ruling CPI(M) insisted that he did not say anything to insult her,however, many CPI leaders and women members expressed serious reservations against his remarks. “His words are in bad taste and we condemn them. A Communist should not have uttered these remarks,” said CPI leader Annie Raja. Party MP Binoy Viswom also deplored his statement and asked him to withdraw it.
But Mani, notorious for his off- the- cuff remarks, insisted that he did not say anything wrong. “She always portrays the chief minister (Pinarayi Vijayan) in bad light in the House. In fact, the opposition was using her to target the CM. When she continuously raised serious charges against him, I replied to her,” he said, adding he has no plan to withdraw his words or apologise.
Meanwhile, the opposition legislators protested in the assembly seeking an apology from Mani. “His remarks were anti-women and misogynistic. He should tender an unconditional apology. But what is really shocking is the justification given by CM Pinarayi Vijayan,” said opposition leader V D Satheesan.
Vijayan was party secretary when Chandrasekharan was killed in 2012.
Later, finance minister P Rajeev replied to the opposition leader saying what Mani meant was that the CPI(M) had nothing to do with T P Chandrasekharan’s murder. Speaker M B Rajesh adjourned the House after protests mounted.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also slammed Mani’s statement. “This shows the so-called progressive party’s attitude towards women,” said party’s state president K Surendran.
Notorious for his foot-in-mouth comments, Mani has stirred many controversies in the past also. In 2012 , when he was the then Idukki district secretary of the CPI(M), he had said that the party often resorted to political killings and had warned that Chandrasekhran’s murder was not the last one.
He had given a blow-by-blow account of how the party had carried out these killings. “We had prepared a list of 13 people and killed the first three. The first one was shot dead, second beaten to death and third was hacked to death,” he had said. After his speech had triggered a nationwide protest, he was suspended from the state committee.
Though the party central leadership had wanted stern action against him, the state unit was not ready to dump the senior leader who was Idukki district secretary for over 20 years. When the flood of the century ravaged the state in August 2018, he had said big floods do happen in every century and it was natural to have enough death and destruction. In the first Vijayan ministry, he was the power minister.
